Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

NASA’s Perseverance rover now busy at work on Mars carries a microphone mounted onto the robot’s SuperCam mast unit.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

Consider it sound advice.

The use of tiny microphones on NASA’s Mars Perseverance has proven big time beneficial to both engineers and scientists. They can identify wind gusts even hear the staccato popping sounds made by instrument-generated laser pulses.

Similarly, the swirling blades of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter have been picked up, as has the pumping rhythm of an oxygen-making experiment.

Hear, hear! Flights of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter have been picked up by the Perseverance rover, offering both valuable engineering and scientific data.
Image credit: Ralph Lorenz, et al., NASA/JPL-Caltech, University of Arizona/HiRISE

Thanks to the Perseverance machinery rolling about within Jezero Crater, it’s time to turn up the volume on microphones for extra-planetary exploration.

For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “Microphones in space: Why scientists want to listen in on alien worlds” – at:

https://www.space.com/microphones-in-space-listen-to-alien-worlds