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SOS: Don't Trash Space Science - The Fight for Science and Exploration
 

Projects: Planetary Microphones

The Huygens "Microphone"

One of the science experiments aboard ESA’s Huygens probe to Saturn’s moon Titan was an “Acoustic Sensor Unit.”  Part of the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument, or HASI, the Acoustic Sensor Unit was designed to detect possible sounds of Titan thunder.  However, the Acoustic Sensor Unit was only designed to return enough information to Earth for its science team to tell whether they detected thunder at all.  It did not return recorded sound.

In order to help people around the world hear something akin to the noises of Huygens' descent, The Planetary Society processed the HASI team’s data into sounds, calling upon our experience with designing and building the Mars Microphone.  The Planetary Society asked University of California Berkeley scientist Greg Delory to help with the effort.  Delory developed a computer program to turn the data from the entire 2.5-hour descent into recorded sound, and also produced processed sounds from the moments around landing.  The first versions of the sounds were played for the world the morning after Huygens’ successful descent.

Listen to the Sounds from Titan!

More about the Huygens Acoustic Sensor Unit