Is it impossible to put a working microphone on Mars?

[spartan45]

In a recent BBC science show Professor Brian Cox said the Curiosity Rover was acting as our eyes and ears on Mars. Not quite so, because despite having 17 cameras, drilling abilities and a laser, it does not carry any microphones. Microphones might warn of a squeaky wheel, an approaching wind / dust storm or the like. When I raised the question I was told that space and weight was precious and microphones on Curiosity would not have added to the success of the mission. I found this strange because the Huygens probe even had a microphone for Titan and a scientist for that mission said Mars would be a prime candidate for microphone use. All craft prior to Curiosity that carried microphones were unsuccessful, so perhaps it was wise not to fit them. It has made me wonder if we shall ever hear the sounds of Mars.

[ronin]

I half suspect that as the air pressure on Mars is very low, estimates seem to be around 6/1000 of ours (less then 1%), so a microphone will not work very well. So any sound will be low in amplitude and the speed of sound is greatly reduced.

Titans atmosphere is however denser then earths, so lots of sound and is in some ways similar, it has lots of nitrogen in it. So I suspect that it ws assumed that more data could be obtained by putting a microphone on the probe.

[JB80]

They had one on Phoenix but decided to switch it off in case it triggered a failure in a landing mechanism and there was one on the ill-fated  Polar Lander that was never heard from again.

I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually.

[Macavity]

Yes, sometimes the (lack of) instrumentation can be a tad perplexing.

But hey, that's not a criticism of these efforts!

Personally, I would have loved to see even a "Box Brownie" side-on

picture of the Jovian Cloudscapes from the Galileo Probe, but...

[Alien 13]

I dont know if they have a VLF receiver on board but that plus a microphone would have been a very interesting addition and im sure the "sounds of mars" would make the mainstream news too.

P.S it would be spooky if it sounded like the red weed soundtrack off the war of the worlds album.

Alan

[Anarchist]

Did I imagine NASA playing a Will.I.Am song from a rover then? Or did that news break on 1st April and I didn't notice?

[Mukv]

Greetings

would a pizo transducer attached to a flat surface produce data that could be interpreted as sound? and also detect stress for that surface multifunction?

or am I just talking waffle...

Andy

[acey]

Did I imagine NASA playing a Will.I.Am song from a rover then? Or did that news break on 1st April and I didn't notice?

It was broadcast back to Earth from the rover - there were no loudspeakers on Curiosity to actually play it there. No idea what the point of it was, except as some kind of PR-grabbing ego-boosting celeb fest (oh, sorry, I meant "educational outreach"....)

[Dave In Vermont]

Ack! Ack!

(trans: "We HATE  'Will i Am' music! This means WAR!)

Ack! Ack!

(trans: Dave)

[Algieba]

I've never really thought about that before, it certainly would be interesting to know what it would sound like on Mars.

[acey]

Somebody tried to simulate Martian sound - article here (link to sample is broken unfortunately):

http://phys.org/news70900952.html

The low pressure means sound would not travel as far and would be much quieter than an equivalent source on Earth. On Mars you would hear a scream, but not from far away.

Paper abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19206842