The Mars Microphone Onboard SuperCam

Mimoun, David; Cadu, A.; Murdoch, Naomi; Chide, Baptiste; Sournac, A.; Parot, Yann; Bernardi, Pernelle; Pilleri, P.; Stott, Alexander; Gillier, Martin; Sridhar, V.; Maurice, S.; Wiens, R. C.

doi:10.1007/s11214-022-00945-9

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Another microphone intended to listen to the entry descent and landing, referred to as the EDL microphone, is bolted to the rover body at 1 m height on the port side (Maki et al., 2020). In this work, we only use data from the SuperCam microphone as its calibration is well characterized (Mimoun et al., 2023).…”

Section: The Sensors On Perseverancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Wind and Turbulence Observations With the Mars Microphone on Perseverance

et al. 2023

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We utilize SuperCam's Mars microphone to provide information on wind speed and turbulence at high frequencies on Mars. To do so, we first demonstrate the sensitivity of the microphone signal level to wind speed, yielding a power law dependence. We then show the relationship between the microphone signal level and pressure, air and ground temperatures. A calibration function is constructed using Gaussian process regression (a machine learning technique) taking the microphone signal and air temperature as inputs to produce an estimate of the wind speed. This provides a high rate wind speed estimate on Mars, with a sample every 0.01 s. As a result, we determine the fast fluctuations of the wind at Jezero crater which highlights the nature of wind gusts over the Martian day. To analyze the turbulent behavior of this wind speed estimate, we calculate its normalized standard deviation, known as gustiness. To characterize the behavior of this high frequency turbulent intensity at Jezero crater, correlations are shown between the evaluated gustiness statistic and pressure drop rates/sizes, temperature and energy fluxes. This has implications for future atmospheric models on Mars, taking into account turbulence at the finest scales.

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Section: The Sensors On Perseverancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the lower limit, we examine signals down to 20 Hz as below this it is not well calibrated. For in depth details of the microphone and its calibration/installation see Mimoun et al (2023).…”

Section: Microphone Recordingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wind and Turbulence Observations With the Mars Microphone on Perseverance

et al. 2023

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“…The SuperCam microphone has also observed significant temperature fluctuations that are attributable to atmospheric turbulence (Maurice et al, 2022;Mimoun et al, 2023). During the period analyzed in this paper (L s 13°-180°), the microphone was mostly operated during the daytime; however, with only a handful of nighttime recordings, coincident recordings of nocturnal turbulence were not made.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nocturnal Turbulence at Jezero Crater as Determined From MEDA Measurements and Modeling

et al. 2023

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Mars 2020 Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument data acquired during half of a Martian year (Ls 13°–180°), and modeling efforts with the Mars Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (MRAMS) and the Mars Climate Database (MCD) enable the study of the seasonal evolution and variability of nocturnal atmospheric turbulence at Jezero crater. Nighttime conditions in Mars's Planetary Boundary Layer are highly stable because of strong radiative cooling that efficiently inhibits convection. However, MEDA nighttime observations of simultaneous rapid fluctuations in horizontal wind speed and air temperatures suggest the development of nighttime turbulence in Jezero crater. Mesoscale modeling with MRAMS also shows a similar pattern and enables us to investigate the origins of this turbulence and the mechanisms at play. As opposed to Gale crater, less evidence of turbulence from breaking mountain wave activity was found in Jezero during the period studied with MRAMS. On the contrary, the model suggests that nighttime turbulence at Jezero crater is explained by increasingly strong wind shear produced by the development of an atmospheric bore‐like disturbance at the nocturnal inversion interface. These atmospheric bores are produced by downslope winds from the west rim undercutting a strong low‐level jet aloft from ∼19:00 to 01:00 LTST and from ∼01:00 LTST to dawn when undercutting weak winds aloft. The enhanced wind shear leads to a reduction in the Richardson number and an onset of mechanical turbulence. Once the critical Richardson Number is reached (Ri ∼ <0.25), shear instabilities can mix warmer air aloft down to the surface.

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“…This means that the dissipation regime on Mars should be observable at frequencies above ∼2 and ∼13 Hz for the convective layer and unstable surface layer, respectively, and perhaps at even higher frequencies depending on the dissipation rate (Temel et al 2021). As the InSight pressure sensor data only provides reliable data to frequencies up to 2 Hz (Banfield et al 2020b), in order to sample the dissipation regime on Mars, instruments with much higher sampling frequencies are necessary (for example, the SuperCam microphone on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover; Maurice et al 2022;Mimoun et al 2023).…”

Section: Dissipation or Viscous Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Diurnal and Seasonal Turbulence Variations of the Martian Atmosphere Using a Spectral Approach

Murdoch,

Stott,

Mimoun

et al. 2023

Planet. Sci. J.

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We use a spectral approach to analyze the pressure and wind data from the InSight mission and investigate the diurnal and seasonal trends. Our analyses show that the daytime pressure and wind spectra have slopes of approximately −1.7 and −1.3 and, therefore, do not follow the Kolmogorov scaling (as was also previously reported for a reduced data set in Banfield et al.). We find that the nighttime pressure spectral slope is close to −1 (as reported in Temel et al.), and that the wind speed spectral slope is close to −0.5, flatter than the theoretical slope expected for the shear-dominated regime. We observe strong nocturnal (likely shear-generated) turbulent behavior starting around L s = 150° (InSight sol 440) that shifts to progressively earlier local times before reaching the “5th season” (InSight sols 530–710) identified by Chatain et al.. The diurnal spectral slope analyses indicate an asymmetry in the diurnal behavior of the Martian boundary layer, with a slow growth and fast collapse mechanism. Finally, the low-frequency (5–30 mHz) pressure data exhibit large spectral slope oscillations. These occur particularly during the periods with a highly stable atmosphere and, therefore, may be linked to gravity wave activity.

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The Mars Microphone Onboard SuperCam

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

Wind and Turbulence Observations With the Mars Microphone on Perseverance

Wind and Turbulence Observations With the Mars Microphone on Perseverance

Nocturnal Turbulence at Jezero Crater as Determined From MEDA Measurements and Modeling

Investigating Diurnal and Seasonal Turbulence Variations of the Martian Atmosphere Using a Spectral Approach

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