mineralists:I thought we should do a post on Aerogel for the hell of it.. so here it is!Aerogel is
mineralists: I thought we should do a post on Aerogel for the hell of it.. so here it is!Aerogel is a synthetic ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with gases. Aerogels are solid and dry materials that do not resemble gels in their physical properties. ‘Pressing softly on an aerogel typically does not leave even a minor mark; pressing more firmly will leave a permanent depression. Pressing extremely firmly will cause a catastrophic breakdown in the sparse structure, causing it to shatter like glass – a property known as friability; although more modern variations do not suffer from this.’ The slight coloring that Aerogel has comes from Rayleigh scattering of the shorter wavelengths. This will cause the Aerogel to appear blue on dark background and yellow on brighter backgrounds. Aerogels can be made out of the materials: Silica, Carbon, Aluminium oxide. And there is an ‘organic’ aerogel made out of agar that goes by SEAgel.The last picture in this photoset is of a Stardust Dust Collector made by NASASources and picture sources: http://hight3ch.com, http://gyroscope.com, http://assets.dornob.com, http://www.thinkgeek.com, and http://en.wikipedia.org -- source link
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