alt Hacker NewsThis discovery is thanks to Perseverance having microphones. It's crazy to think about that 2021 was the first time we had working microphones on Mars.
The first Mars Microphone was originally supposed to land in 1999 on the Polar Lander, but that one didn't survive the landing. The next was in 2008 on Phoenix 's Mars Descent Imager, but in integration testing a bug was discovered that made the Descent Imager risky to use, so that was never activated. And on all the rovers since then a microphone wasn't deemed important enough compared to all the other possible payloads
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> The next was in 2008 on Phoenix 's Mars Descent Imager, but in integration testing a bug was discovered that made the Descent Imager risky to use, so that was never activated. And on all the rovers since then a microphone wasn't deemed important enough compared to all the other possible payloads
There was exactly one Mars rover, Curiosity, between 2008 and Percy.
How does this work in practice. If a microphone is up there, it's constantly listening for things right?
So how do humans here on Earth go over it to know if a sound was picked up knowing there's hours of recording?
Is it that the whole system is programmed to show a spike when sound is captured?
it's wild given how small and light basic microphone is. They even (probably not in 1999 tho) come with their own adc and serial interface now.
Then again I guess there isn't any obvious need for it aside from PR points for "listening to mars"
> The first Mars Microphone was originally supposed to land in 1999 on the Polar Lander, but that one didn't survive the landing.
This could be misread to mean that Mars Polar Lander landed but the microphones didn't survive. Mars Polar Lander crashed and was presumed completely destroyed on impact. Last I heard, we still haven't found the crash site in orbital imagery.