Is the speed of sound on Mars the same as on Earth? To understand

Since the Perseverance rover reached Mars in February 2021, scientists on Earth have been able to clearly hear the sounds of the Red Planet thanks to two microphones installed in the equipment. it took To calculate the speed of sound in Martian soilThis was one of the themes of the 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Analyzing a 2022 experiment in which Perseverance fired lasers at rocks and waited for the shock wave to be recorded on its microphones, planetary scientist Baptiste Chide of Los Alamos National Laboratory explained: The speed of sound on Mars is very different from those recorded on our planet.

According to the study, if you could talk on the surface of Mars, you would hear a quieter, muffled version of the sounds you hear on Earth. Another oddity is this: On Martian soil, high-pitched sounds will reach your ears before lower-pitched sounds.. In other words, sounds such as whistles, bells or birdsong will practically not be heard there.

What is the speed of sound on Mars and Earth?

The sound we hear is actually the perception of the vibration of our eardrum. This vibration is caused by pressure waves reaching our auditory system from the sound source. To do this, they need means of travel, such as air.

Because the Martian atmosphere has a very different temperature, density, and chemistry than Earth’s, this has three effects on the sound you hear.

The first is the speed of sound: about 240 m/s on Mars and about 340 m/s on Earth. Moreover, the sound on the Red Planet would be much quieter than here, and there would be attenuation or attenuation at certain frequencies..

How is the speed of sound propagated on Mars?

While presenting their work at the conference, the authors explained that the speed of sound evaluated in the research was “calculated along the entire acoustic propagation path from the ground to the height of the microphone.” The results confirmed that sounds propagate through the Martian atmosphere at a speed of approximately 240 meters per second near the surface.

However, due Mars’ soundscape becomes strange due to properties of low-pressure carbon molecules in the Martian atmosphere. According to the study, this planet is the only terrestrial planet in the Solar System with an atmosphere that “experiences a change in the speed of sound right in the middle of the audible bandwidth (20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz).”

This causes frequencies above 240 Hertz (just below middle C on the piano) to trigger vibrational modes that are activated by collision with carbon molecules that have not had enough time to relax or return to their original state. As a result, the speed of sound at higher frequencies travels more than 10 m/s faster than at lower frequencies.

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