NASA recently received some interesting news from their Mars rover. The rover sent its first ever audio recording of the Martian wind to the NASA headquarters.
NASA Receives Laser Zaps From Mars
As per the latest reports, the Mars Rover sent audio data to the operation centre in Toulouse, France. It included the sounds of the martian winds. Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for Preseverance’s SuperCam instrument said that it was good to see that it worked well on Mars. He added that when he and his first dreamed of creating a device like this eight years ago, they were worried of being too ambitious.
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“Now, it is up there working like a charm.”
Reports suggest that the sounds were received just eighteen hours after the landing. The first file captured the faint sounds of the winds. The sounds of the wind become more audible in the second file sent on the fourth Martian day.
But the SuperCam’s third file included laser-like sounds from hitting a rock target at least 30 times at a distance of around 10 feet. This is the first time when an instrument has used the Raman spectroscopy to capture son=unds from anywhere outside the earth.
SuperCam Is Expected To Help In Groundbreaking Research In Mars Sample Return Campaign
Olivier Beyssac, the Research Director at the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in Paris said that Raman spectroscopy played a crucial role in understanding the minerals and other geological conditions on the planet. It would also help the scientists understand if these could potentially be able to develop some living organisms.
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The Supercam was created by both Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico and a French Research laboratories associated with CNES.
Thomas Zurbuchen, the Associate Administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington said that SuperCam gives them promising rock samples and helps in understanding the materials and how they react to sound. This will further help in groundbreaking researches in Mars as part of their Mars Sample Return Campaign.
