Amazingly, the sound a rock makes when Perserverance’s laser strikes it can help scientists infer its mass and relative hardness. The latter is helpful for figuring out whether the rock formed in a lake or from wind erosion.

There is weather on Mars, including winds, sandstorms, and dust devils, which are little tornadoes caused by local weather patterns. The SuperCam microphone may be able to hear these phenomena, as well as Perseverance itself using its arm and drill. By recording how the rover sounds over time, the mission team may be able to diagnose the health of the rover’s science instruments and internal mechanisms.

The most exciting sounds may be ones that we don't even know about yet. Experience has demonstrated that whenever a new instrument is developed and flown in space, we learn something new about extraterrestrial environments, and therein lies the true spirit of the Mars microphone concept.

What would a human sound like on Mars?

Suppose you found yourself on Mars without a spacesuit. What would you say? Probably "Help!" because the air is more than 100 times thinner than Earth's, and contains very little oxygen.

Your understandably poignant plea wouldn't go far in the Martian air, which will mute even the loudest screams to near whispers. Stranger still, your voice would be lower-pitched than on Earth because of the lower sound speed. But suppose, suspending disbelief for a short while, that you really could speak on Mars. How would you sound?

Back when we were first pioneering the concept of a Mars microphone, we recorded some sample audio to show how human voices would sound on Mars:

Bill Nye, Planetary Society CEO

Earth, Mars

Ray Bradbury, science fiction author and former Planetary Society advisor

Earth, Mars

James Cameron, director, producer, and writer

Earth, Mars

Bruce Betts, Planetary Society chief scientist

Earth, Mars

Donna Shirley, former Planetary Society advisor and NASA engineer

Earth, Mars

Other extraterrestrial sounds

Scientists occasionally convert non-acoustic data from spacecraft instruments into frequencies human ears can hear. A recent example is an audio recording made from vibrations picked up by the seismometer aboard NASA’s InSight lander, which is currently operating on Mars.

The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe had a microphone running when it landed on Saturn’s moon Titan in 2004. University of California Berkeley scientist Greg Delory, who worked with The Planetary Society on the Mars microphone project, helped ESA quickly process the audio data after Hugyens’ landing so members of the public could hear what it would sound like to plunge through Titan’s haze.