Image of the planet Mars (iStock) How do things sound on Mars? NASA publishes what some sounds from Earth would sound like there

 

The sounds would arrive in a more muted form and the treble would hardly be heard

Birds singing would hardly be heard on Mars because it is a high-pitched sound. NASA has just published a list of sounds comparing how they sound on Earth and how they would sound on the red planet .

"If you were on Mars, you would hear  a quieter, muffled version of what you hear on Earth, and you would wait a little longer to hear it," the space agency explains. 

The Perseverance probe landed on Mars on February 18, 2021 , after seven months of travel. A few days later, he made public the first sounds recorded on the surface of the planet , thanks to the two microphones he has built in. Of the five vehicles NASA has sent to Mars, Perseverance is the first to carry microphones.

Sounds in the Martian atmosphere

The Perseverance mission team now wanted to approximate how sounds would be different in the atmosphere of Mars. To generate these sounds, the SuperCam microphone scientists considered three key variables:  atmospheric temperature, density and chemistry . They did the simulation with a distance of 150 meters between the audio source and the listener.

Among the things that are compared are the sound of waves, the ringing of a bicycle, the theme "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy, or Neil Armstrong's famous words when he reached the moon: "A little step for man, one great leap for mankind", sounds that can be heard at this link .

The SuperCam team consists of scientists and engineers from the United States and France, with occasional contributions from scientists from Spain, Canada, Denmark, and Germany.

Differences with Earth

Sounds emitted in the cold Martian atmosphere would take a little longer to reach the ear. With an average surface temperature of around -63 C, the speed of sound is lower on Mars , around 540 mph (~240 meters per second), compared to about 760 mph (~340 meters per second) on earth. This is irrelevant at short distances, but noticeable at longer distances.

In terms of volume, it would automatically be lower on Mars. The Martian atmosphere is about 100 times less dense than on Earth and this affects how sound waves travel from the transmitter to the receiver, resulting in a softer signal. One would have to be much closer to the source of the sound to hear it at the same volume as it would be heard on Earth.

The sound quality is also different. Mars' atmosphere, made up of 96% carbon dioxide, would absorb many high-pitched sounds, so only the lowest sounds would travel long distances. This effect is known as attenuation, a weakening of the signal at certain frequencies, and would be more noticeable the further away you are from the source.