Monday February 25, 2002

Talk about strange work! This job looks like a cross between hang glider pilot and surgeon. It's part of the construction and testing of the Rosetta spacecraft, designed to chase comets. Another comet chase vehicle, Stardust, completed a critical maneuver over the weekend on it's long journey to catch meteorite dust about two years from now. How do you catch dust particles travelling six times the speed of a bullet? Make a "catcher's mitt" out of the new wonder nothing, aerogel. Aerogel is cool stuff: 99.8% air, provides 39 times more insulation than the best fiberglass insulation, and is 1,000 times less dense than glass.