ABSTRACT We study the density modulation of an interacting Fermi gas caused by the uniform motion of an impurity at zero temperature. For strong enough interaction among atoms, the modulation propagates thanks to the excitation of the collective zero sound mode if the impurity speed is above the zero sound threshold. We are able to assess, via a semi‐analytic evaluation, the extent of the zero sound contribution to the density oscillation over and above the incoherent background of particle‐hole excitations. Given the strong dependence of the results on the features of the gas interaction potential, we also analyze how they vary depending on its strength, range and shape.