InSight Records Sound of Wind on Mars

Sci-News.com ^ | Dec 10, 2018 | News Staff / Source

[ETL]

On December 1, 2018, NASA’s InSight lander captured a haunting low rumble caused by vibrations from the Martian wind, estimated to be blowing between 10 to 15 mph (5-7 m/sec) from northwest to southeast. The wind was consistent with the direction of dust devil streaks in the landing area, which were observed from orbit.

“Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat. But one of the things our mission is dedicated to is measuring motion on Mars, and naturally that includes motion caused by sound waves,” said InSight principal investigator Dr. Bruce Banerdt, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The vibrations caused by the Martian wind were detected by two very sensitive sensors on InSight: an air pressure sensor inside the lander and a seismometer sitting on the lander’s deck.

The air pressure sensor, part of the Auxiliary Payload Sensor Subsystem (APSS), which will collect meteorological data, recorded these air vibrations directly.

The seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), recorded lander vibrations caused by the wind moving over the spacecraft’s solar panels, which are each 7 feet (2.2 m) in diameter and stick out from the sides of the lander like a giant pair of ears.

[ETL]

In related news...

This Fluffy Alien World Farts Helium

Space.com, via LiveScience ^

| Sarah Lewin, Associate Editor, Space.com

As a Jupiter-size world swings around its small but active star, bombarded by radiation, the planet leaves behind a tail of escaping helium as wide as itself — and researchers have spotted this tail from the ground, 163 light-years away.

Since scientists first found planets around other stars, many of their most striking discoveries have come from off-Earth instruments like NASA’s Kepler and Hubble space telescopes. Kepler has identified more than 2,000 verified planets passing by their stars, while Hubble observations have helped scientists characterize exoplanet atmospheres. But two new papers published today (Dec. 6) in the journal Science pinpoint the movement of helium in alien atmospheres from the comfort of our home planet. ..."

"This is the first time we can actually observe a helium tail," Lisa Nortmann, lead author on one of the new papers and a researcher at Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain, told Space.com. In their new paper, Nortmann's group looked for helium in the outer atmospheres of multiple planets. And one, called WASP-69b, showed a particularly dramatic effect.

"Before, it was assumed that if helium is in the [outermost atmospheric layer of a] planet, it might escape and form a tail. That was based on models, but this is the first time we can actually observe it while it's still in front of the star, when the planet is not in front of the star anymore," she said. Though WASP-69b is about the size of Jupiter, she said, it has the mass of Saturn, meaning it's lighter and fluffier than any of our solar system's planets.

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...

[butlerweave]

Yep wind is wind no matter where you are

[beelzepug]

“...between 10 to 15 mph”

BETWEEN, not ‘to’. ‘To’ is a range, not a measurement. FROM 10 to 15 mph would be correct as would between 10 AND 15 mph. I hear TV newscasters get it wrong all the time. The editor of Space.com certainly ought to know better.