Mars lander captures symphony of sounds on planet’s surface
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-03/mars-lander-captures-symphony-of-sounds/11571998
An “exquisitely sensitive” detector attached to NASA’s InSight lander on Mars has captured the low rumble of marsquakes — much like earthquakes — and an assortment of otherworldly sounds.
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Tau.Neutrino said:
Mars lander captures symphony of sounds on planet’s surface
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-03/mars-lander-captures-symphony-of-sounds/11571998An “exquisitely sensitive” detector attached to NASA’s InSight lander on Mars has captured the low rumble of marsquakes — much like earthquakes — and an assortment of otherworldly sounds.
more…
Nice.
“The seismometer has detected more than 100 events, but only 21 are considered strong marsquake candidates. The rest could be marsquakes — or something else.
“ suggest that the Martian crust is like a mix of the Earth’s crust and the Moon’s. Mars is slightly more Moon-like, with seismic waves ringing for a minute or so, whereas quakes on Earth can come and go in seconds.
So Mars is more solid than Earth but less solid than the Moon? That makes sense.
Now mentioned on apod. Together with animated gif from InSight.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap191004.html
Clouds drift through the sky as the light fades near sunset in this three frame animated gif. The scene was captured on sol 145 beginning around 6:30pm local time by a camera on the Mars InSight lander. Of course, InSight’s martian day, sol 145, corresponds to Earth calendar date April 25, 2019.
Under the 69 centimeter (2.3 foot) diameter dome in the foreground is the lander’s sensitive seismometer SEIS designed to detect marsquakes. Earthquakes reveal internal structures on planet Earth, and so tremors detected by SEIS can explore beneath the martian surface. In particular, two typical marsquakes were recorded by SEIS on May 22 (sol 173) and July 25 (sol 235). The subtle tremors from the Red Planet are at very low frequencies though, and for listening have to be processed into the audio frequency range. In the sped up recordings external noises more prevalent on cool martian evenings and likely caused by mechanical shifts and contractions have been technically dubbed dinks and donks.
NASA’s press release. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-insight-hears-peculiar-sounds-on-mars
Evening is also when peculiar sounds that the InSight team has nicknamed “dinks and donks” become more prevalent. The team knows they’re coming from delicate parts within the seismometer expanding and contracting against one another and thinks heat loss may be the factor, similar to how a car engine “ticks” after it’s turned off and begins cooling.