Posted for Laura Starr

You might have read a passing reference to the aural aspirations of the Phoenix Mars Lander’s Earth bound controllers earlier this week. They wanted to activate a microphone on the Red Planet. Phoenix Principal investigator, Peter Smith, was excited at the prospect, saying that in the realm of cosmic exploration “This is definitely a first.”

Well, after a couple of glitches the switch-on has very nearly been given the go ahead, tickling the taste buds of the enthusiastic media.

NASA mission leaders have announced that the device, which is embedded within the landing apparatus of the Phoenix spacecraft, should be ready in a couple of weeks once a few checks and software updates have been made.

So, what would we hear? Well, it’s a tad more complicated that one might have thought. Mars has a thin atmosphere and so does not transmit sound as effectively as the Earth’s. This means that lower-pitched sounds are carried better than higher-pitched ones, so the recordings sound both quieter and deeper then they would be on our planet. Consequently, there is a possibility that sounds caused by winds and sandstorms, for example, might not be picked up. However, it might instead be useful in recording sounds produced by Phoenix itself – although why one would want to do that is anybody’s guess. Nevertheless any sounds that are collected will be analysed in a collaborative investigation carried out by The Planetary Society (with a claim of being “a pioneer in planetary acoustics”) and Malin Space Science Systems.

The mike was supposed to have been turned on during touch down back in May, however if the scientists thought that this might have disrupted the spacecraft’s landing process – a risk considered not worth taking, especially after the failure of the Mars Polar Lander back in ’99, which did in fact have a microphone on-board.

Image: NASA/JPL/MSSS