Hear the roar of a Martian dust devil: NASA spacecraft captures unprecedented audio on Mars

NASA recently shared audio of a Martian dust devil recorded by the Perseverance Mars rover's SuperCam microphone- the first time any such recording has been made. According to the agency, the dust devil passed directly over the rover on Sept. 27, 2021, the 215th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

While SuperCam was capturing the dust devil, Perseverance's weather sensors (which measure wind, pressure, temperature, and dust) and the rover's left navigation camera were active. This enabled scientists to combine sound, image, and atmospheric data. By combining this data with atmospheric modelling, the researchers were able to estimate the dust devil's size: 82 feet (25 meters) wide, at least 387 feet (118 meters) tall, and moving at approximately 12 mph (19 kph).

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/INTA-CSIC/Space Science Institute/ISAE-Supaero

The video above contains four sections, each based on a different data source.

• The top row is a raw image taken by the left navigation camera's view of the Martian surface.
• The second row shows the same image processed with change-detection software to indicate where movement occurred over the course of the recording.
• The third row is a graph showing a sudden drop in air pressure recorded by Perseverance's weather sensor suite, called Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, provided by Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial in Madrid.
• The fourth row indicates sound amplitude from SuperCam's microphone.

NASA says it's difficult to capture a dust devil as they are unpredictable in nature. Therefore, rovers like Perseverance and Curiosity routinely monitor in all directions for them. When scientists see them occur more frequently at a certain time of day, or approach from a certain direction, they use that information to focus their monitoring to try to catch a dust devil.