Word: layering
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When a re-entry body hits the atmosphere at 13,000 m.p.h.. a shock wave forms a few inches ahead of it. Between the wave and the body is a fast-flowing layer of air heated to something like 12,000° F. At this temperature about 2% of the air's atoms are ionized, i.e., broken into electrons and positively charged ions. The mixture, which physicists call a plasma, is a conductor of electricity...
...work slicing away the sand dunes when one day its driver noticed that he was grazing what seemed to be scorched pavement with jewel-encrusted slabs. Archaeologist Moshe Prausnitz, British-trained senior inspector of Israel's Department of Antiquities, arrived on the scene, found a loose layer of burned mosaic floor, and under that two layers of superb mosaic that seemed to be virtually undamaged...
...side, showed that the expected 142,500,000-box yield of oranges, grapefruit and tangerines has been cut back to 119,400,000 boxes. Federal and state laws prohibit selling as fresh any fruit that falls to the ground, but some growers hid damaged fruit under a layer of good fruit to smuggle it past inspectors and take advantage of premium prices farther north...
...potential troublespot in any rocket engine is the nozzle through which the hot gases escape into the air. Liquid fuels can be used to cool the nozzle, circulating through its hollow walls or seeping through small holes to provide a protective layer on its inner surface. Solid fuel cannot do this, but other means have been developed to keep the racing gases from destroying the nozzle. It is lined with some such high-melting-point material as graphite or zirconium oxide. As the fuel burns, the nozzle enlarges somewhat because of erosion, but the burning rate of the fuel...
...from the sands of Florida's Cape Canaveral last week shot the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile with fiery blast and awesome roar. It climbed majestically into a layer of low-hanging clouds, disappeared to the southeast, and a few minutes later plummeted into the ocean 600 miles away-as planned...