The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission recorded bizarre sounds on Mars. The mission landed on November 2018 with its stationary probe’s seismometer to observe the quakes on the red planet. According to the researchers, the seismometer has detected more than 100 events, 21 of them are possible quakes and the sound of the wind. Seismic movements can create a picture of the internal part of a planet and how it was structured, which is one of the intentions of this mission.

Mars’ surface is dissimilar from Earth’s because of its tectonic plates that do not produce quakes, rather caused by cooling and contraction, which form chasms on its crust. InSight’s arm makes friction and produces alluring sounds like whistling and “dinks and donks”, a nightfall sound due to heat loss. Constantinos Charalambous, an InSight science team member at Imperial College London said that it has been exciting to hear the first vibrations from the lander. “You’re imagining what’s really happening on Mars as InSight sits on the open landscape,” Charalambous added.