Solid smoke

Aerogel is a material developed by the NASA for use in the Pathfinder mission and more recently in the Stardust mission. Nicknamed "solid smoke" silicon dioxid - chemically similar to glass, but a lot less dense: 99.8% of it is air! It can provide 39 times more insulation than fiberglass, an ideal material for capturing high velocity particles in space.
(recorded in Bishops Museum, Honolulu HI - sound is unrelated, sorry)

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Howto & Style

Tags:

• chemistry
• space
• astronomy
• physics
• museum

[longeyes]

what is xD?

[Nostalgic92]

whoa thats awsome how hard is solid smoke?

[longeyes]

I never had it in hand, so dont know

[wuteva12345]

poke it! poke it!

[IWillNotConceide18]

man, i just wanna hold it.

[CalMC2009]

@Nostalgic92 feels like glass apparently

[stuwhit08]

Don't you just wanna look at it!

[aisdesignunit]

actually even more than 20.

Steven Kistler from College of the Pacific did it for first in 1931.

[Anonymouzor]

its actually harder than you think it would

[simonrabaa]

i´ve got a piece of aerogel!

at the moment i am holding it in my hands

it´s just amazing...

if you want to get some, just use google. or sometime there are small pieces at ebay...

it is expensive but it is worthwhile itself

simon

[daltonagre]

This material is knowed for more than 20 years ago.

[SYLoon]

it is aerogel

[killa102591]

SILICA AEROGEL, DUHHHHH!!!!! if u slightly pinch that thing, it will burst into tiny pieces like sand