Speed of Sound NASA (click here)
December 9, 2018
By Eleanor Imster
On December 1, 2018, NASA’s InSight lander, (click here) which touched down on Mars on November 26, provided the first ever sounds of winds on the planet Mars.
The spacecraft’s sensors captured a haunting low rumble caused by vibrations from the wind, estimated to be blowing 10 to 15 miles per hour (6-24 km per hour) from northwest to southeast. The winds were consistent with the direction of dust devil streaks in the landing area, which were observed from orbit.
You can listen to full-length uncompressed .wav files here.
Bruce Banerdt is InSight principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Banerdt said in a statement:
Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat. But one of the things our mission is dedicated to is measuring motion on Mars, and naturally that includes motion caused by sound waves.
InSight (which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is not a rover; it’s designed to stay in one place and to drill into and study Mars’ deep interior. NASA said:
InSight’s two-year mission will be to study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all celestial bodies with rocky surfaces, including Earth and the moon,
formed....
