THE speed of sound on the surface of Mars has been confirmed by scientists and the results suggest it would change your voice.
Nasa used equipment on its Perseverance rover to collect data on Mars’s atmosphere and found higher pitch sounds travel faster there than on Earth.
1
Mars’s atmosphere isn’t safe for human’s to talk openly in so it’s unlikely future Mars settlers will be talking outside of carefully controlled habitats.
However, it’s still an intriguing concept and Nasa even has an online tool for you to test what your voice would sound like on Mars.
The new study suggests speaking or playing music on Mars would provide a “unique listening experience”.
Researchers think higher pitched sounds would arrive at your ears sooner than lower ones.
The speed of sound isn’t universally constant and can be changed by things like temperature and density.
Nasa explains: “If you were standing on Mars, you’d hear a quieter, more muffled version of what you’d hear on Earth, and you’d wait slightly longer to hear it.
“On Mars, the atmosphere is entirely different. But, the biggest change to audio would be to high-pitch sounds, higher than most voices.
“Some sounds that we’re used to on Earth, like whistles, bells or bird songs, would almost be inaudible on Mars.”
Most read in Tech
The new Nasa findings were revealed at the 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
The Perseverance rover used microphones and a laser to accurately pinpoint the speed of sound on Mars.
The laser was able to trigger a perfectly timed noise for the microphone to pick up.
Researchers measured the time between the laser firing and the sound reaching the SuperCam microphone.
They could compare this to results from Earth.
The results backed up Nasa’s previous predictions about the speed of sound on Mars’s surface.
That speed is about 240 meters per second.
As the speed of sound is changed by temperature, the Nasa researchers were also able to use the experiment to fill in some blanks about temperature fluctuations.
They also observed some temperature fluctuations that require more investigation.
We pay for your stories!
Do you have a story for The US Sun team?
