NASA has released an audio recording of its Perseverance rover firing lasers on the martian surface. The strikes, which sound like a series of small clicks, are designed to help scientists analyze the rocks around the rover. In this case the target was a rock called “Máaz,” which scientists were able to discover was basaltic, BBC News reports, meaning it contains a lot of magnesium and iron.
According to NASA’s site, the laser is fired by Perseverance’s “SuperCam,” and allows the rover to “zap and study areas on a rock as small as the period at the end of this sentence” from a distance of 20 feet (7 meters) away. Once the laser has fired at a rock, it uses its camera and spectrometer to analyze the hot gas the rock is vaporized into. The...
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Relax with the calming sound of NASA’s Perseverance firing lasers on Mars
![Relax with the calming sound of NASA’s Perseverance firing lasers on Mars]()
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March 11, 2021
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