--- title: "NASA Releases First-Ever Audio of Meteoroids Smashing Into Mars" description: "If you've ever wondered what a meteoroid sounds like when it slams into another planet, NASA says they've recorded just that — for the first time ever." date: "2022-09-22" modified: "2022-09-22" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/mars-lander-meteoroid-impacts" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "mars" - "meteors" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # NASA Releases First-Ever Audio of Meteoroids Smashing Into Mars ![If you've ever wondered what a meteoroid sounds like when it slams into another planet, NASA says they've recorded just that — for the first time ever.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Close Listening Since 2018, NASA’s Mars InSight Lander has been keeping its ear to the ground, measuring Mars quakes with its sensitive seismometer. Now, the agency has released audio of four meteoroids crashing into the Martian surface — marking the first time a meteoroid impact has been detected on another planet, ever. You might imagine an extraordinary racket. Instead, the nature of the sound was reportedly unexpected. "Strangely, it's more like a 'bloop' than a 'bam!'" [tweeted]() science writer Corey Powell. ## Impactful The first of the four impacts to be confirmed occurred back in September 2021, where the meteoroid exploded into at least three shards that each left a crater on the Red Planet. You can listen to the September 5 impact in a brief explainer [video]() on NASA’s YouTube channel, or you can listen to the soundbite on its own on NASA’s Soundcloud [here](). Published Monday in the journal *Nature Geoscience*, the [study]() outlines how the NASA scientists came to seismically and sonically detect the meteoroid impacts. After the September 5 meteoroid slammed into the Martian surface in triplicate, NASA’s [Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter]() was sent to track down the resulting craters, where it took some preliminary black and white photos. The orbiter’s team followed that up by using the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) to capture colorful closeups of the impacts, which you can view in NASA’s [release](). ## Timeline of Events Even though Mars’ weak atmosphere lets through far more meteoroids that don’t break apart than on Earth, detecting them is a challenge due to wind noise and seasonal changes in the Martian atmosphere, NASA says. But with the discovery of the September 5 impact, scientists knew what seismic signatures to look for, and were able to retroactively detect three additional impacts as far back as May 2020. And the scientists say that the discovery of the impacts will help better map out Mars' timeline. "Impacts are the clocks of the solar system," said lead author Raphael Garcia in the release. "We need to know the impact rate today to estimate the age of different surfaces." **More on Mars:** [*NASA Seems Awfully Excited About Finding Organic Matter on Mars*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()