Re: Eavesdropping on Mars

["Joseph Buck" <josephbuck@hotmail.com>]

Michael-

Thanks for passing this information on... Makes me proud to be a 
resident of Boomtown.  Pasadena definately has an interesting stellar 
corporate culture and I hadn't heard about this part of next lander. 
Will talk to a couple people at JPL and find out more details and pass 
them on...

selam,

Buck

>The next NASA lander will carry a very small listening device to 
capture what
>sounds might exist on Mars.  This is the first microphone sent to 
another
>planet. The device was built at the University of California's Space 
Sciences
>Laboratory for about $50,000 (USD).  It is the creation of the 
Planetary
>Society, a nonprofit space advocacy group once led by Carl Sagan.  
Engineers
>anticipate that the microphone, which fits into the palm of the hand, 
will hear
>and document the wind and sounds of the lander. It may also pick up the 
sound of
>electrical discharges occurring within a Martian sandstorm. According 
to Greg
>Delory, chief engineer, "The most exciting sound we're going to hear is 
the one
>we don't know about." Popular Science, August, 1998, page 28.
>
>
>


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