CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) – NASA’s new Mars rover has sent the first sounds of driving to the red planet: an annoying, loud and strange matter that by Earth’s standards would be quite troubling.
The noises made by Perseverance’s six-wheelers and metal suspensions in the first driving test two weeks ago are part of a 16-minute raw audio feed published Wednesday by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
“If I heard those sounds driving my car, I would stop and ask for a trailer,” Dave Gruel, the rover’s team engineer, said in a written statement from NASA. “But if you take a minute to consider what you’re listening to and where it was recorded, it makes perfect sense.”
Perseverance, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars, landed near an ancient river delta on Feb. 18 to look for signs of past life. Samples of the most promising rocks will be taken for their eventual return to Earth.
The rover carries two microphones. One has already captured the sounds of the wind and rock laser, and the other was intended to record the descent and landing. This second microphone did not pick up any sound from the rover’s arrival on Mars, but managed to record the first test drive on March 4th.
According to NASA, the driving audio contains an unexpected, high-pitched scratching noise. Engineers are trying to figure it out.
Before he starts drilling rocks for core samples, Perseverance will leave an experimental helicopter with tags, called Ingenuity. The helicopter will attempt the first controlled and motorized flight on another planet next month.
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