Chapter 04 of 5
Stardust & The Cosmic Vacuum
How NASA used aerogel to catch high-speed particles from a comet's tail.
- The Challenge
Capturing Comets
Comet dust travels at hyper-velocities. Traditional filters would vaporize the tiny particles upon impact due to extreme friction.
- Physical Logic
The Soft Stop
Aerogel acts like a microscopic sponge for kinetic energy. It slows down particles gradually instead of causing a sudden, destructive collision.
- NASA Stardust
A Cosmic Mitt
In 1999, the Stardust mission launched with a tennis-racket-shaped collector filled with silica aerogel blocks.
17 more cards in this chapter
Could you answer this?
Why did NASA choose aerogel to capture comet dust during the Stardust mission?
☁️ The Impossible Smoke of Aerogel
- 01The Bet: Replacing Liquid with AirThe origins of the world's lightest solid from a 1930s laboratory wager.
- 02Supercritical Drying & The Phase ShiftMastering the physics of heat and pressure to create 'frozen smoke.'
- 03Nanopores: The Physics of 99% AirWhy a material that is almost entirely empty space is a master insulator.
- 04Stardust & The Cosmic VacuumHow NASA used aerogel to catch high-speed particles from a comet's tail.
- 05The Future of Less: Beyond SilicaModern iterations using carbon and polymers for the next generation of materials.