New Audio From Mars Captures Sounds of Ingenuity Helicopter's Flight (businessinsider.com) 15
"A ghostly hum has been echoing across the plains of Mars' Jezero Crater," reports Business Insider.
Slashdot reader quonset writes: NASA has released a short video of Ingenuity's fourth flight on Mars. However, a bountiful side effect is they were able to hear the hum of its rotors.
Perseverance's microphone was turned on during the flight, and despite Ingenuity being over 260 feet away, it was able to capture both sight and sound of the historic event.
While the majority of sound is Martian wind rustling against the microphone, NASA enhanced the sound to make the rotor sounds more audible. They are most apparent when Ingenuity returns to its takeoff spot and the rotor hum dies down when the blades come to a halt.
"We had carried out tests and simulations that told us the microphone would barely pick up the sounds of the helicopter, as the Mars atmosphere damps the sound propagation strongly," said NASA's science lead for the Perseverance rover's microphone.
"We have been lucky to register the helicopter at such a distance. This recording will be a gold mine for our understanding of the Martian atmosphere."
Slashdot reader quonset writes: NASA has released a short video of Ingenuity's fourth flight on Mars. However, a bountiful side effect is they were able to hear the hum of its rotors.
Perseverance's microphone was turned on during the flight, and despite Ingenuity being over 260 feet away, it was able to capture both sight and sound of the historic event.
While the majority of sound is Martian wind rustling against the microphone, NASA enhanced the sound to make the rotor sounds more audible. They are most apparent when Ingenuity returns to its takeoff spot and the rotor hum dies down when the blades come to a halt.
"We had carried out tests and simulations that told us the microphone would barely pick up the sounds of the helicopter, as the Mars atmosphere damps the sound propagation strongly," said NASA's science lead for the Perseverance rover's microphone.
"We have been lucky to register the helicopter at such a distance. This recording will be a gold mine for our understanding of the Martian atmosphere."
No science payload (Score:3)
"We have been lucky to register the helicopter at such a distance. This recording will be a gold mine for our understanding of the Martian atmosphere."
For a drone aircraft that was touted as having no scientific payload onboard it sure seems to be contributing to scentific understanding.
Makes me wonder how long until they start trying to use it as a terrain-scout in advance of the rover's movements, scouting both paths to drive and interesting geologic features to consider studying.
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... to blowing the dust off the wheeler's panels.
Would there be enough down force/air movement to blow off much of the dust? I would think Ingenuity would have to get quite close to the panels to have any effect. And that invites other problems.
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Makes me wonder how long until they start trying to use it as a terrain-scout in advance of the rover's movements, scouting both paths to drive and interesting geologic features to consider studying.
They'll probably start early next week. What else is left to do with it?
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If a helicopter flies on mars.. (Score:3)
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Probably loud, buzzy and annoying noise like a weed whacker. Like any other drone.
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Lunar Landar (Score:2)
That video reminds me of the original lunar lander [wikipedia.org] game, just updated with slightly better graphics and a mars background. We need to make it happen.
Nice neighborhood (Score:2)
"despite Ingenuity being over 260 feet away, it was able to capture both sight and sound of the historic event."
Very quiet, no highway nor railway anywhere near.
Thank you... (Score:1)
It pooped! (Score:2)
I'm just glad that the Mars rover doesn't take a crap from time to time, or we'd get stories about how that sounded when it hit the ground.