Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

See and hear the first science results from Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument

By
This image shows a close-up view of the rock target named “Máaz” from the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. It was taken by SuperCam’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI). “Máaz” means Mars in the Navajo language.
This image shows a close-up view of the rock target named “Máaz” from the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. It was taken by SuperCam’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI). “Máaz” means Mars in the Navajo language. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS

With NASA’s newest rover Perseverance safely landing on Mars last month, it has now begun its science operations. It recently took first readings using one of its instruments, SuperCam, which is located on the top of the rover’s mast. SuperCam contains a high-resolution camera, a microphone, and a high-powered laser for performing spectroscopy on rock samples to see what they are composed of.

SuperCam was used to snap a close-up image of a rock, shown above. The rock target is named “Máaz,” from the Navajo language, which means “Mars.” The data was sent from the rover to a group of French laboratories at the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES)

Recommended Videos

“It is amazing to see SuperCam working so well on Mars,” said Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, in a statement. “When we first dreamed up this instrument eight years ago, we worried that we were being way too ambitious. Now it is up there working like a charm.”

The SuperCam instrument also includes a microphone, which can be used to measure the sound of the laser entering a rock sample. This tells researchers information about factors like how deep the laser is penetrating and the hardness of the rock.

It also means that the microphone can be used to record the sounds of Mars, including the sound of the wind which was recorded just after the rover landed and while the mast was still folder down. NASA has now shared three audio clips recorded by SuperCam. “The sounds acquired are remarkable quality,” said Naomi Murdoch, a research scientist and lecturer at the ISAE-SUPAERO aerospace engineering school in Toulouse. “It’s incredible to think that we’re going to do science with the first sounds ever recorded on the surface of Mars!”

“I want to extend my sincere thanks and congratulations to our international partners at CNES and the SuperCam team for being a part of this momentous journey with us,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “SuperCam truly gives our rover eyes to see promising rock samples and ears to hear what it sounds like when the lasers strike them. This information will be essential when determining which samples to cache and ultimately return to Earth through our groundbreaking Mars Sample Return Campaign, which will be one of the most ambitious feats ever undertaken by humanity.”

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
See a postcard from Mars taken by the Curiosity rover
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas of “Marker Band Valley” at two times of day on April 8. Color was added to a combination of both panoramas for an artistic interpretation of the scene.

Today, you can enjoy a stunning new view of Mars, thanks to a postcard from the Gale Crater taken by the Curiosity rover. The image combines two different views of the same area and is colorized to show off the undulating martian landscape in a region called the Marker Band Valley.

The image, shared by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), shows the back of the rover and views of the tire tracks it has left across the martian surface as it has driven. The view on the left side of the image was taken in the morning of April 8, at 9:20 a.m. local Mars time, while the image on the right side was taken on the same day but in the evening, at 3:40 p.m. local Mars time. The two images have been blended together to show how the landscape looks different throughout the day.

Read more
See a 3D view of a martian crater captured by the Perseverance rover
A snippet of the mosaic of Belva Crater taken by the Perseverance rover.

The Jezero crater on Mars, where NASA's Perseverance is currently exploring, is vast at nearly 30 miles across and was likely created by a huge asteroid impact. But there wasn't just one asteroid impact -- it's thought that several asteroids hit the area over millions of years, creating a succession of craters that overlap and fit within each other.

A snippet of the mosaic of Belva Crater taken by the Perseverance rover. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Read more
Perseverance rover finds evidence of an ancient river on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic of a hill nicknamed “Pinestand.” Scientists think the tall sedimentary layers stacked on top of one another here could have been formed by a deep, fast-moving river.

The Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars's Jezero Crater as part of its mission to search for evidence of ancient life on Mars. The history of water is key in the search for life, and it is currently thought that Mars lost its water around 4 million years ago. Now, the rover has identified evidence of what was once one of the deepest and fast-flowing rivers yet discovered on the planet.

The rover captured a series of hundreds of images using its Mastcam-Z instrument, which were put together into this mosaic showing a hill structure called Pinestand. In the image, you can see the many layers left behind by the flowing river, which were formed by deposits of sediment.

Read more