Solid lighter

2002/05/10 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Materialak
• Astronautika

NASA has presented the lighter solid and so have the record book Guinness. Although the components are like those of glass, that is, silica dioxide and sand, their density is 1,000 times lower (specifically, it weighs three milligrams per milliliter). In fact, 99.8% is gas and is prepared as gelatin: the room resulting from mixing a liquid silicon compound with a liquid that rapidly evaporates is dried in a device like the pressure cooker. The mixture is thickened and then heated and de-pressurized to obtain a transparent silicon sponge.

This material in the form of icy smoke, even if it seems fragile, supports very well the releases and the space medium. Specifically, they have been designed for use in space, and in 2004 they want to use it to capture the particles of comet Wild 2. However, it is not the first time a similar material is used, since during the mission of Mars Pathfinder on Mars NASA used the aerogel almost as light as the current one to isolate from the temperature.

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