Sounds recorded from other planets
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Sounds Recorded From Other Planets — Daily trivia Friday, August 28, 2026: questions and answers
All 10 questions with answers and explanations. Play this daily
Q 01What did a Mars rover's microphone hear from another spacecraft?
- AIngenuity's rotor blades
- BCuriosity's drive motors
- CInSight's robotic arm
- DAn orbiter's radio ping
Show answer
Ingenuity's rotor blades
Ingenuity's rotor blades. The rover's SuperCam microphone caught the helicopter's low hum on its fourth flight, though the team wasn't sure thin Martian air would carry any sound.
Q 02Which planet gave us the first sounds ever recorded on another world?
- AVenus
- BMars
- CMercury
- DSaturn
Show answer
Venus
The Soviet Venera 13 lander survived 127 minutes on Venus in March 1982 and its microphone picked up wind and the lander's own drill, the first sounds from another planet, decades before any Mars microphone worked.
Q 03Which rover first recorded sound on the surface of Mars?
- ASpirit
- BOpportunity
- CCuriosity
- DPerseverance
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Perseverance
Perseverance returned the first audio from the Martian surface days after landing in February 2021. A microphone had flown to Mars before, on the Mars Polar Lander, but that spacecraft was lost on arrival in 1999.
Q 04What did NASA's InSight lander hear rumbling beneath Mars in 2019?
- AMarsquakes
- BThunderstorms
- CMeteoroid impacts
- DVolcanic eruptions
Show answer
Marsquakes
Marsquakes. InSight's SEIS seismometer caught its first likely quake in April 2019, a rumble so far below human hearing that NASA had to speed it up for listeners.
Q 05Which SuperCam action on the Perseverance rover produced popping sounds on Mars?
- AFiring its laser at rocks
- BRotating its turret
- CActivating its drill
- DDeploying its mast
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Firing its laser at rocks
Firing its laser at rocks. Each shot vaporises a speck of rock, and how the pop sounds gives scientists clues to the rock's hardness.
Q 06Cassini's eerie 'sounds of Saturn' were recordings of what?
- ARadio emissions
- BAtmospheric wind
- CRing particles colliding
- DThruster vibrations
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Radio emissions
Radio emissions from Saturn's auroras were picked up by Cassini's Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrument as it closed in on the planet; the frequencies were shifted into human hearing range. In space itself they would be silent.
Q 07Mars has two speeds of sound in thin air made mostly of which gas?
- ANitrogen
- BCarbon dioxide
- CArgon
- DOxygen
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Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide. It makes up about 95% of Martian air, and Perseverance's microphone found the two speeds sit about 10 m/s apart.
Q 08Which Mars lander carried a microphone that was never switched on?
- APhoenix
- BViking 2
- CPathfinder
- DInSight
Show answer
Phoenix
Phoenix, which landed near Mars's north pole in 2008, had a microphone built into its descent camera, but engineers feared it could interfere with the landing and never turned it on. Mars went unheard until 2021.
Q 09Because Martian air swallows high pitches within about 8 metres, which everyday act would be hard there?
- AHumming to yourself
- BChatting across a room
- CHearing your footsteps
- DFeeling a rumble
Show answer
Chatting across a room
Chatting across a room. High pitches that carry about 65 metres on Earth die out within about 8 on Mars, so even a friend 5 metres away would sound muffled.
Q 10ESA's Titan probe team hoped its microphone might capture the splash of rain made of what?
- AWater
- BAmmonia
- CSulfuric acid
- DMethane
Show answer
Methane
Titan is the only world besides Earth known to have rain, rivers and lakes on its surface, but at –180 °C the liquid is methane, not water. In the end the sensor mostly caught wind and turbulence.
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