The use of tiny microphones on NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has proven incredibly beneficial to both engineers and scientists. The sensors can identify wind gusts and even hear the staccato popping sounds made of laser pulses made by the rover's instruments.
Similarly, the swirling blades of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter have been picked up by these microphones, as has the pumping rhythm of the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), an oxygen-making experiment aboard Perseverance.
Based on the valuable scientific contributions these instruments have made aboard Perseverance as it rolls about within Jezero Crater, it's time to turn up the volume on microphones for extra-planetary exploration.
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