NASA's Perseverance rover sends back sounds of driving on Mars for the first time

Adding a whole new dimension to Mars exploration, NASA’s Perseverance rover has sent back audio of itself crunching over the surface of the Red Planet.

By Earth's standards, these sounds of banging and clanking would be quite worrisome. The audio clip, released by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is a part of the rover's first test drive 2 weeks ago on Mars.

Over 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds of the rover traveling on Mars generated by its wheels and suspension system also has a high-pitched scratching noise.

Perseverance’s engineering team is evaluating the source of the scratching noise, which could either be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the mobility system and the Martian surface.