NASA Captures The Eerie Sounds Of Mars Dust Devil For The First Time
On Mars, a dust devil whips through its skies, carrying with it a cloud of dust and granular. NASA’s Perseverance Rover stands amid the chaos, capturing the sights and sounds of this weather phenomenon.
The space exploration team has just released images and audio clippings of the first time it has caught the sounds of a dust devil traveling through the planet.
The audio clip below, via Science News, delivers the eerie tones of the whirlwind zipping around the rover. However, you can hear the wind die out at one point as the dust devil’s eye passes over Perseverance.
NASA estimates that the whirlwind was approximately 82 feet wide and 387 feet high.
The clip isn’t just a look at what life on Mars might sound like; it holds valuable information for scientists here on Earth. For example, planetary scientist Naomi Murdoch tells The Washington Post that sound bite allowed the team to hear the impacts of grains on the rover. The audio was so clear they could “actually count them.”
As we move to a future where the Red Planet might be our Plan(et) B, dust is a significant factor that scientists have to consider. It is notorious for eroding spacecraft heat shields and damaging instruments, parachutes, and solar panels.
[via Engadget and Space.com, cover image via NASA/JPL-Caltech]
