• DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04679-0
• Corpus ID: 247865804

In situ recording of Mars soundscape

@article{Maurice2022InSR,
  title={In situ recording of Mars soundscape},
  author={Sylvestre Maurice and Baptiste Chide and Naomi Murdoch and Ralph D. Lorenz and D. Mimoun and Roger C. Wiens and A. Stott and Xavier Jacob and T. Bertrand and Franck Montmessin and Nina L. Lanza and C{\'e}sar Alvarez-Llamas and Stanley M. Angel and M. Aung and J. Balaram and O. Beyssac and Agn{\`e}s Cousin and Gregory T. Delory and Olivier Forni and Thierry Fouchet and Olivier Gasnault and H{\aa}vard Fj{\ae}r Grip and Michael Hecht and John Hoffman and J. Javier Laserna and J{\'e}r{\'e}mie Lasue and Justin N. Maki and John B. McClean and Pierre‐Yves Meslin and St{\'e}phane Le Mou{\'e}lic and Asier Munguira and Claire E. Newman and J. A. Rodr{\'i}guez Manfredi and Jos{\'e} Garc{\'i}a Moros and Ann M Ollila and Paolo Pilleri and Susanne Schr{\"o}der and Manuel de la Torre Juarez and T. Tzanetos and Kathryn M. Stack and Kenneth A Farley and Kenneth H. Williford and R. C. T. R. B. D. M. G. M. R. P. K. S. P. T. B. A. A. Wiens Acosta-Maeda Anderson Applin Arana Bassas-Po and Roger C. Wiens and Tayro E. Acosta-Maeda and R. B. Anderson and Daniel M. Applin and Gorka Arana and Marti Bassas-Port{\'u}s and Roberta Ann Beal and Pierre Beck and Karim Benzerara and S. Bernard and Pernelle Bernardi and Tanja Bosak and B. Bousquet and Adrian J. Brown and Alexandre Cadu and P. Ca{\"i}s and K. Castro and Elise Clav{\'e} and S. M. Clegg and Edward A. Cloutis and Stephanie A. Connell and Andr{\'e} Debus and Erwin Dehouck and Dorothea Delapp and Christophe Donny and A. Dorresoundiram and Gilles Dromart and Bruno Dubois and C{\'e}cile Fabre and Amaury Fau and W. Fischer and Robert Francis and Jens Frydenvang and Travis S. J. Gabriel and Erin Gibbons and Ivair Gontijo and J. R. Johnson and Hemani Kalucha and Ellis Kelly and Elise Wright Knutsen and Gaetan Lacombe and St{\'e}phane Le Mou{\'e}lic and C. Legett and Richard L{\'e}veill{\'e} and Eric Lewin and Guillermo L{\'o}pez-Reyes and Eric Pascal Jean Lorigny and J. M. Madariaga and M. B. Madsen and Soren Madsen and Lucia Mandon and Nicolas Mangold and Maude F. Mann and Jose Antonio Manrique and Jes{\'u}s Mart{\'i}nez-Fr{\'i}as and Lisa E. Mayhew and Timothy H McConnochie and Scott M. McLennan and Noureddine Melikechi and Franck Meunier and Gilles Montagnac and Val{\'e}rie Mousset and Tony Nelson and R. T. Newell and Yann Parot and C{\'e}dric Pilorget and P. Pinet and G. Pont and F. Poulet and Cathy Quantin-Nataf and Benjamin Quertier and William Rapin and Adriana Lenneta Reyes-Newell and Scott H. Robinson and Ludovic Rochas and Cl{\'e}ment Royer and Fernando Rull and Violaine Sautter and S. K. Sharma and V. Shridar and Anthony Sournac and Matthew Toplis and Imanol Torre-Fdez and Nathalie Turenne and Arya Udry and Marco Veneranda and D. M. Venhaus and David S. Vogt and Peter Willis},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2022},
  volume={605},
  pages={653 - 658}
}

• S. Maurice, B. Chide, +129 authors P. Willis
• Published 1 April 2022
• Physics
• Nature

Before the Perseverance rover landing, the acoustic environment of Mars was unknown. Models predicted that: (1) atmospheric turbulence changes at centimetre scales or smaller at the point where molecular viscosity converts kinetic energy into heat1, (2) the speed of sound varies at the surface with frequency2,3 and (3) high-frequency waves are strongly attenuated with distance in CO2 (refs. 2–4). However, theoretical models were uncertain because of a lack of experimental data at low pressure and the difficulty to characterize turbulence or attenuation in a closed environment. Here, using Perseverance microphone recordings, we present the first characterization of the acoustic environment on Mars and pressure fluctuations in the audible range and beyond, from 20 Hz to 50 kHz. We find that atmospheric sounds extend measurements of pressure variations down to 1,000 times smaller scales than ever observed before, showing a dissipative regime extending over five orders of magnitude in energy. Using point sources of sound (Ingenuity rotorcraft, laser-induced sparks), we highlight two distinct values for the speed of sound that are about 10 m s−1 apart below and above 240 Hz, a unique characteristic of low-pressure CO2-dominated atmosphere. We also provide the acoustic attenuation with distance above 2 kHz, allowing us to explain the large contribution of the CO2 vibrational relaxation in the audible range. These results establish a ground truth for the modelling of acoustic processes, which is critical for studies in atmospheres such as those of Mars and Venus. Using data gathered from the microphones of the Perseverance rover, the first characterization of the acoustic environment on Mars is presented, showing two distinct values for the speed of sound in CO2-dominated atmosphere.