There was a video coming up yesterday, promising Curiosity’s audio recordings from the surface of Mars. I instinctively clicked the link which took me to some seconds of pretty unrealistic groaning and howling and then – ok, I’ve been nicely rickrolled.
But what about real sounds from the surface of Mars? Why haven’t we heard any of these yet? The answer is simple: there’s no recording. To my knowledge, not a single Mars sound recording exists today. After getting used to seeing high definition images from Mars I was quite surprised to learn that.
There have been at least two attempts to capture Mars sounds, but unfortunately both failed. NASA’s Mars Polar Lander carried a microphone but lost contact to Earth during it’s descent to Mars in 1999.[ref]More on Mars Polar Lander communication loss: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander#Communications_loss[/ref]
Phoenix, another NASA spacecraft, landed successfully in 2008 but the instrument carrying the microphone was not activated due to a computer card failure.[ref]Here’s a detailed explanation why Phoenix MARDI was not used http://www.msss.com/msl/mardi/news/12Nov07/index.html[/ref]
So what about Curiosity? Unfortunately, there’s no microphone on board this trip. Yes, that’s true: NASA planned a rover mission that costs US$ 2.5 billion and did not include a simple mic.
Scientific objectives and payload constraints
So why’s there no mic on board? That’s mainly because MSL is a scientific mission and has a clearly defined objective:
The overall scientific goal of the mission is to explore and quantitatively assess a local region on Mars’ surface as a potential habitat for life, past or present.[ref]MSL science goals: http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/ScienceGoals/[/ref]
Hence, every instrument has to work toward the overall scientific goal. Maybe there have been discussions about including a microphone in the early planning stages but the team decided that a mic would not reveal new facts about Mars’s habitability.
Also, spaceflight is extremely expensive and every extra gram costs money, so you only bring the things you really need.
Sounds from distant worlds
Though we don’t have any sounds from Mars, we do have another quite amazing audio recording. On January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan. And it recorded audio of its descent.
You can listen to the winds of Titan here (jump to 1:13 if you wanna skip the explanation):
Knowing that this was the actual sound of Huygens going down on Titan gave me goosebumps – real sounds from an alien world!
Titan’s atmosphere is much denser than that of Mars (and even that of Earth), so sounds recorded on Mars would be much fainter. Also, they would have a lower pitch than on Earth because Mars’s atmosphere mainly consists of carbon dioxide.
Could we somehow still get sounds from Curiosity?
This is only a thought experiment and purely speculative, so don’t take this too seriously. I thought about a way how we could make Curiosity hear, even without a microphone.
You may know so called “laser listening systems” or “laser microphones“. These surveillance devices use a laser beam to capture faint vibrations from surfaces (which are caused by the impact of soundwaves). The reflected signal can be converted into an audio signal. This way, Curiosity’s laser could potentially capture Mars sounds.
Yeah, I know that’s pretty unrealistic – but it would be super awesome if you ask me.
I was under the impression Phoenix’s mic actually just couldn’t pick up anything audible over the noise threshold, so they have a “clip”, but never released it since its just static.
Yes, that’s true. The article got it wrong. Curiosity team have answered the question about why there’s no microphone on curiosity in their AMA with reddit.
You can see it yourself here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ybmmh/we_are_engineers_and_scientists_on_the_mars/c5u3d45?context=3
Also:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ybmmh/we_are_engineers_and_scientists_on_the_mars/c5u3ltq?context=3
I reiterate my dismay:
NASA, beyond of scientific objectives ,
emphasize on the media their missions,
also with ideas questionable
(eg. load the self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci in the memory of Curiosity;
retransmit the songs; print up the logo Curiosity ;
develop and install a camera as MARDI for 20 seconds of video landing!
etc.),
while waiver “to the sound” , eg. during landing;
for the acoustic-vibrational analysis (FFT) of any mechanical faults of the
rover;
the acustic analysis of the sand storms, etc.),
for a few grams of the microphone!
We speak of an object 50 grams, 5 cm per side (technology of 10 years ago):
Curiosity has on board 800 kg of instruments!
Best regards
Giampiero Di Marco
I had thought about this a while ago. Thinking that the problem with bringing a mic to mars was the feat of keeping it in working condition through the journey what with all the moving parts. A laser mic should be simple to get there.
I think the problem runs deeper than you think though. I feel this tracks back to how scientists operate. They are simply absolutely god awful at marketing. They see no point in giving earthlings the chance to hear martin wind. What experiment would that be for? Indeed Carl Sagan was ridiculed by the vast majority of the scientific community for being a popular scientist.
This is a marketing problem.
Btw, it’s “mic” not “mike”
Changed!
By the way, “mike” is also a perfectly acceptable usage and is in most dictionaries.
Actually, sound from Mars is really faint. This is caused by two things. First, the Martian atmosphere is really thin, so there whatever sound there is doesnt travel very far. Second, its made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide, which turns out to be a great sound absorber. So any sounds made more than about ten feet away cant be heard. There is some interest in getting mics to Mars, since the astronauts that eventually go there will want to be able to hear things like rock slides and such from far away, but until that becomes a concern, there just isnt all that much we could do with a mic on Mars.
Bonus Fact: People on Mars will sound taller than they do on Earth. This is because the thinner atmosphere will make our larynxes relatively longer to the vibrations in the air, which tends to be correlated with height.
It has a speaker, doesn’t it? A speaker can be used as a microphone too.
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@Duncan: right on the money. The problem is that many scientists fail to recognize the importance of capturing the public’s imagination, and despise anything that’s not of strict scientific value. Then their funding is slashed because there are not enough voters interested in scientific programs.
The curiosity team did a reddit AMA which included a clarification on what happened with the mic on Phoenix, you can google it but here’s the gist: it was a second-class payload with no associated science team, even 5 months after the landing with all the mission goals completed they couldn’t bother to try it. Then a blind man tweeted that he wished he could at least hear Mars, and they gave it a go. Only empty files came back, they assumed the mic was frozen, and the last bit of power went out before they could warm it up and try again.
We need a new Carl Sagan. If it wasn’t for his insistence there wouldn’t be the Pale Blue Dot, one of the most influential astronomy pictures of all time, because it was not scientifically relevant.
Sencillamente a NASA no le interesa en absoluto que la gente pueda escuchar los sonidos de Marte que ellos ya han escuchado, (no me refiero a los científicos que salen en prensa)
Que el mundo pudiese escuchar los sonidos de Marte podría poner en un serio compromiso a la NASA
Piensen en esto, cualquier cámara incorpora este tipo de dispositivo de grabación de sonido como uno más de sus componentes, no se trata de un componente único y aparte que requiera de especiales condiciones diferentes a cualquier otro componente de la cámara, es más, un micrófono sofisticado en la actualidad no ocupa ni siquiera el espacio de 1mm y es capaz de capturar sonidos de manera asombrosa y en una cosiderable área de terreno. Sea este terreno Marte o cualquier otro por muy extraña que sea su atmósfera ya que es infinitamente más complejo diseñar los equipos que graban las imágenes, y estas ya están diseñadas, asi que tan solo basta con añadir este minúsculo componente con un par de cablecitos conectados a los chips de las cámaras y punto
¿Que se congelan los micros? ¿y entonces por qué razón no se congelan también las cámaras fotográficas y sus componentes? es decir, basta con incluir a la cámara otro diminuto e insignificante dispositivo como un micrófono en miniatura
Así pues, las constantes y reiteradas contradicciones que vemos en los argumentos que nos ofrece la NASA respecto de las razones por las que dicen que no incorporan micrófonos en sus naves, son mucho más que obvias a los ojos de cualquer persona mínimamente entendida.
Yo me preguntaría que es lo que intentan ocultar con eso
Sadly some scientific programs still fail to understand that most ordinary humans expect ordinary human things – one is to be able to not only see things but to hear things (if possible). I have often wondered why the Mars programs (especially the most recent ones) not include an ordinary flag posted on a mast or indeed a wind sock or wind cock so that at least ordinary humans can have a one to one experience with the Mars missions. At the moment ordinary humans seem to get most excitement from seeing the wheel tracks of the various rovers then from lasers zapping rocks or brainiacs talking about chemicals most have never heard of… etc…