{"id":3425,"date":"2022-04-05T17:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T17:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=3425"},"modified":"2024-06-21T17:52:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T17:52:20","slug":"planetary-scientist-helps-equip-rover-perseverance-with-4-of-the-5-human-senses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2022\/Q2\/planetary-scientist-helps-equip-rover-perseverance-with-4-of-the-5-human-senses","title":{"rendered":"Planetary scientist helps equip rover Perseverance with 4 of the 5 human senses"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —<\/p> \n

For two decades, Roger Wiens has built instruments to give humans eyes and a nose on Mars \u2013 and now he\u2019s helping add ears as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Wiens<\/a>, a professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in the College of Science<\/a> at Purdue University, and an expert in Mars robotics technology, led the team that built SuperCam<\/a>, a device on the Perseverance Mars rover that includes a laser for zapping rocks as well as the microphone that brought the first recordings of Mars to Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was at Los Alamos National Laboratory<\/a>, I started looking around to see if there were any Department of Energy<\/a> technologies that we might be able to harness and use for planetary science, and that\u2019s where Curiosity\u2019s ChemCam<\/a>, which later evolved into Perseverance\u2019s SuperCam, came from,\u201d  Wiens said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SuperCam incorporates a technology that uses a pulsed laser beam to pulverize tiny bits of rock samples up to 30 feet away. The instrument collects the light from the brief flash emitted in the process, allowing scientists to analyze rocks that its arm can\u2019t reach and to \u201csee\u201d and analyze samples even through Mars dust that coats the rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In incorporating the microphone into SuperCam, Wiens and his collaborators have opened up opportunities for a range of science and research on the Martian surface that was never possible before, including helping analyze rock and recording sounds<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we zap these rocks, we can find out more about their hardness and composition by listening to the change in sound as a number of laser shots get fired into the rock in the same spots,\u201d Wiens said. \u201cWe can hear the helicopter Ingenuity, which is something we didn\u2019t expect to be able to hear. We can hear the wind and measure the speed and direction, as well as measure the size and speed of dust devils. We can listen to the rover\u2019s own sounds and monitor health and safety the same way you gauge your car\u2019s well-being by listening to the motor. Things sound different on Earth because the rover\u2019s ears are shaped different from ours and the atmosphere is so different, but we\u2019re making recordings and learning things every other day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Purdue University<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to today\u2019s toughest challenges. Ranked in each of the last four years as one of the 10 Most Innovative universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at\u00a0https:\/\/stories.purdue.edu<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Media contact:<\/strong>\u00a0Brittany Steff,\u00a0bsteff@purdue.edu<\/a>
Source:<\/strong>\u00a0Roger Wiens,\u00a0rwiens@purdue.edu<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n
\n

Note to journalists:<\/p>\n

\n Visitors to campus should follow standards set in\u00a0Protect Purdue guidelines<\/a>. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — For two decades, Roger Wiens has built instruments to give humans eyes and a nose on Mars \u2013 and now he\u2019s helping add ears as well. Wiens, a professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in the College<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,7],"tags":[],"department":[32],"source":[29],"purdue_today_topic":[66],"coauthors":[10],"class_list":["post-3425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-research-excellence","department-science","source-purdue-news","purdue_today_topic-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3427,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions\/3427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}