Christian Elliott

Well, first, Mars is a pretty rough place to drive a robot around.

These rovers don't last forever.

For one thing, the rocks are just super sharp.

Remember Curiosity, Perseverance's predecessor?

That rover's been exploring Mars since 2012.

But some 300 days into the rover's mission, the team noticed the rocks were tearing up the metal wheels.

A tire change up there is not an option.

So for Perseverance, they totally redesigned those wheels.

Yeah, Curious Universe has the claim to fame of the first podcast to ever feature a microphone recorded sound from Mars.

Here's a recording of Perseverance driving around.

You can hear the rover itself and the Martian wind.

It sounds a little different from how it would on Earth because the atmosphere is less dense, so sound can't travel as well.

And the 96% carbon dioxide atmosphere also absorbs some frequencies.

Yeah, it blows my mind, and it is not just us audio nerds.

Katie also loves the microphones.

There are also more color cameras and, yes, a bunch more scientific instruments.

Because, Katie told me, this time scientists wanted to go beyond analyzing the composition of rocks like Curiosity does.

They wanted to see the patterns and textures in those rocks.

Because life is one of the biggest forces that changes how rocks look.

Now, Perseverance has another pretty cool new trick.