Alright, stop the giggling. No, NASA’s InSight Lander, which touched down on the red planet late last month, has not captured little green men letting rip. What it does have, however, is audio taken from its air pressure sensor and seismometer. So, if you want to hear what wind sounds like on Mars, this is as good as it gets.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2018/12/new-images-from-mars-show-nasas-insight-landed-on-an-absolutely-glorious-spot/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_lfill,w_768,q_90/sqkh0bkhqjwkdwioid44.jpg” title=”New Images From Mars Show NASA’s InSight Landed On An Absolutely Glorious Spot” excerpt=”It’s been 11 days since InSight made its picture-perfect landing on Mars. Vivid new photos taken from the landing site are finally giving mission controllers a sense of the landscape around the stationary probe — and the early signs are very positive.”]
The sounds in the video, captured on December 1, are actually incredibly hard to hear as they “are nearly all bass”, according to NASA. Those with good headphones or a kicking subwoofer should be fine, but for everyone else, NASA has upped the audio by a couple of octaves.
What you’re hearing are technically vibrations, as the organisation explains:
The spacecraft’s seismometer and air pressure sensor picked up vibrations from 10-15 mph (16-24 kph) winds as they blew across Mars’ Elysium Planitia on Dec. 1, 2018.
If you’d like the WAV files themselves, they can be downloaded from NASA’s website. Alternatively, it has uploaded the audio to its SoundCloud account, so you can listen to each recording individually.
[YouTube]