Speed ​​of sound on Mars

An international team of researchers analyzed the sound collected by the Perseverance robot (NASA) and determined the speed of sound on Mars. Baptiste Chide, an expert at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), presented the team’s findings at the 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference taking place March 7-11 in Texas. .

Perseverance landed on the surface of Mars more than a year ago. Since then, the robot has studied the surrounding landscape with a series of cameras and sensors. Perseverance also has a microphone that allows it to record and send back to Earth sounds heard on the red planet. In the new study, experts analyzed these voices to find useful information.

The team used data from microphones to measure the speed of sound on Mars. Specifically, they measured the time it took the sound emitted by the Perseverance laser to return to the robot’s microphone. This robot shoots lasers at the rocks to study their composition.

Scientists noticed that sound travels on Mars at a speed of about 864 km/h. However, they also found that different frequencies of sound travel at different speeds. Speed ​​increases by about 36 km/h at the upper threshold of 400 Hz. This suggests that communication on Mars will be very difficult because parts of speech reach listeners at different times, throwing conversations into chaos.

The microphone also helps measure the temperature of the Martian surface around the robot, Chide said. This is because sound travels at different speeds depending on the temperature. By measuring the speed of sound each time Perseverance fires a laser, the researchers were able to calculate the rapid change in temperature.

The team intends to continuously monitor and analyze the Martian acoustics for a year to learn more about changing different conditions on the red planet, for example during winter or when dust storms arise.

Kam Thao (Based on physical)

at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here