Hearing wind on Mars.
(Science Week – Day 1!)
A happy and wondrous Darwin Day. ^ ^
Seven years after the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars to investigate its past habitability, December 2019 brought the InSight rover to its surface. Its main addition to the data-collecting instruments there: a seismometer to chart tectonic and vibrational activity beneath it – something to compare to what’s read on Earth.
Space often inspires wonder visually – the first detailed glimpse of a rock, star or distant galaxy. (“Thanks to science, it’s as though we could travel there.”)
What an additional dimension from InSight on landing: the recorded vibrations of wind, processed into something audible. For the still and arid pictures of Mars, to think its atmosphere is like Earth’s with drifts and currents in the gases held to it.