These recordings allow scientists to study the Martian wind, atmospheric turbulence and now dust movement as never before, Murdoch said. It followed up with audio of the rover driving around and its companion helicopter, little Ingenuity, flying nearby, as well as the crackle of the rover’s rock-zapping lasers, the main reason for the microphone. This same microphone on Perseverance’s mast provided the first sounds from Mars - namely the Martian wind - soon after the rover landed in February 2021. Of the 84 minutes collected in its first year, there's “only one dust devil recording,” she wrote in an email from France. She estimates there was just a 1-in-200 chance of capturing dust-devil audio. Given that the rover’s SuperCam microphone is turned on for less than three minutes every few days, Murdoch said it was “definitely luck” that the dust devil appeared when it did on Sept. The microphone picked up 308 dust pings as the dust devil whipped by, said Murdoch, who helped build it. This one was in the average range: at least 400 feet (118 meters) tall and 80 feet (25 meters) across, traveling at 16 feet (5 meters) per second. Photographed for decades at Mars but never heard until now, dust devils are common at the red planet. “It was fully caught red-handed by Persy,” said co-author German Martinez of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Sounds of mars