Lander tunes in to the windy music of Mars United States
Nasa’s new Mars lander has captured the first sounds of the ‘‘really unworldly’’ Martian wind.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory released audio clips of the alien wind yesterday. The low-frequency rumblings were recorded by the InSight lander during its first week of operations on Mars.
These are the first sounds from Mars that are detectable by human ears, according to the researchers. The wind is estimated to be blowing at 16 to 24kmh.
‘‘Reminds me of sitting outside on a windy summer afternoon,’’ Cornell University’s Don Banfield said.
The noise is of the wind blowing against InSight’s solar panels and the resulting vibration of the entire spacecraft. The sounds were recorded by an air pressure sensor inside the lander that is part of a weather station, as well as by the seismometer on the deck of the spacecraft.
The low frequencies are a result of Mars’ thin air density, and even more so the seismometer itself, which is meant to detect underground seismic waves, well below the threshold of human hearing.
InSight landed on Mars on November 26. ‘‘We’re all still on a high from the landing . . . and we’ve already got some amazing new science,’’ said Nasa’s acting director of planetary science, Lori Glaze.