Exploring the capabilities of microphone data from Mars to determine the properties of an extraplanetary atmosphere

几十年来，我们向其他世界发送了摄像机，但从未成功地倾听过一个。自20世纪90年代以来，莱顿认为从我们可以发送探测器的行外环境中获得声学数据是有用的，例如木卫二的海洋和火星，金星，泰坦和木星的大气层。这个梦想在2021年实现了，“毅力”号火星车登陆火星。它的麦克风记录了空气动力学信号（例如，沙尘暴经过时的风噪声），灰尘影响（当沙尘暴经过毅力的权利）和声学信号（伴随的直升机无人驾驶飞机的旋翼桨叶音调，从最远100米的距离;和20米远的岩石受到毅力激光的冲击波）2023年2月，雷顿和约瑟夫受邀前往国际空间科学研究所查看“毅力”号的数据。这就是他们的见解的价值，他们已经是Perseverance团队的论文（今天发表1）的唯一英国合著者，该论文显示了麦克风信号对科学研究火星大气层属性的价值，这些属性目前是一个谜，例如湍流和地面附近的温度分布。这个博士项目将分析仍然来自Perseverance的麦克风数据，为Perseverance推荐任务以获取新数据，并进行地球上的实验，为下一个火星探测器使命和未来的任务设计麦克风阵列（麦克风现在已经分配给泰坦未来的蜻蜓直升机）。

For many decades, we have sent cameras to other worlds, but have never successfully listened to one. Since the 1990s, Leighton argued the usefulness of obtaining acoustic data from extraplanetary environment to which we could send probes, such as the moon Europa's oceans and the atmospheres of Mars, Venus, Titan and Jupiter. This dream was realised when, in 2021, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars. Its microphone has recorded aerodynamic signals (e.g. the wind noise of a passing dust devil), dust impacts (when said dust devil passed right over Perseverance) and acoustic signals (the rotor blade tones of the accompanying helicopter drone, Ingenuity from up to 100 m distant; and the shock waves from rocks up to 20 m distant that are impacted by Perseverance's laser).Leighton and Joseph were invited in February 2023 to the International Space Science Institute to view the Perseverance data. Such was the value of their insights, they are already the only UK co-authors on the paper (published today1) from the Perseverance team showing the value of microphone signals for science to investigate properties of the Martian atmosphere that are currently a mystery, such as the turbulence and temperature profile near the ground). This PhD project will analyse the microphone data that is still coming from Perseverance, recommend missions for Perseverance to take new data, and conduct on-Earth experiments to design the microphone array for the next Mars rover mission, and for future missions (a microphone has now been allocated to Titan's future Dragonfly helicopter).