The Perseverance rover snapped a look at its deck and stowed arm on Feb. 20, 2021.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Well this is fascinating.
Since its spectacular landing on Mars in February, NASA’s next-gen Perseverance rover has been delivering a-grade content. We’ve heard the wind blowing on Mars, listened to it blast rocks with a laser and watched blustery dust devils swirl on the Martian surface.
Now NASA has given us another drop: A 16 minute sound clip of Perseverance, literally persevering, driving across the surface of Mars.
According to NASA this is 16 minutes of raw unfiltered audio from Mars itself. You can hear the wheels rattle over the rocky surface, the squeaking of the suspension, alongside a strange scratching noise that NASA things thinks could be “electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the rover mobility system and the Martian surface.”
Whatever it is, it just adds the haunting ambience. We have sent robots to a far-off planet and these are noises from that planet. Wild.