Word: aerogel
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Dates: during 1999-1999
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...switched to aerogel, an ultra-lightweight glass foam that's 99.8% air. It resembles nothing so much as solidified smoke. The aerogel is packed into a collector that resembles a circular ice-cube tray about a foot across. En route to Wild 2, one side will trap dust that's wafting in from beyond the solar system--another item of great interest to astronomers--and once there, it will flip to scoop up comet dust...
...will be smaller than the width of a human hair, but they expect to have it down by 2006. They may not have the luxury of a pure sample: a perfect seal would have been too expensive, which leaves a remote chance that some earthly dust could contaminate the aerogel on re-entry, making analysis more complicated...
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