Lots of science comes from amusing circumstances. Penicillin, for example, was discovered from someone saying, "You gonna eat that?" to Alexander Fleming. Marie Curie was really just looking for a cool glow in the dark paint to make the ceiling in her bedroom have "stars!" And aerogel was created in 1931 due to a bet between two scientists. Ok, the first two were just jokes, but that last one is true. A bet led to the discovery of aerogel - considered by some to be the substance that will help humans reach Mars - and now you can get some for your very own!
Silica aerogel--the same ethereal blue material used by NASA to insulate electronics on the Mars rovers and to capture comet dust on the Stardust mission--is now available for the rest of us! Also known as frozen smoke, aerogel is one of those super cool materials that you have heard about but probably never experienced in person. Now all that can change in an instant with this sample disc. Makes a great conversation piece or display item.
Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Sometimes called “frozen smoke”, aerogel is made by the supercritical drying of liquid gels of alumina, chromia, tin oxide, or carbon. It’s 99.8% empty space, which makes it look semi-transparent. Aerogel is a fantastic insulator — if you had a shield of aerogel, you could easily defend yourself from a flamethrower. It stops cold, it stops heat. You could build a warm dome on the Moon. Aerogels have unbelievable surface area in their internal fractal structures — cubes of aerogel just an inch on a side may have an internal surface area equivalent to a football field. Despite its low density, aerogel has been looked into as a component of military armor because of its insulating properties.
Extremely hard-to-find transparent monolithic form. Perfect for gifts, science projects, and display. These aerogels have a density of ~0.095 g/cc, meaning they are an incredible 96% air by volume.
