The award-winning composition, by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is made up of 99.8% air and 0.2% silica. The aerogel has a density of 1.9 mg/cm 3. While it can be colorful, aerogel starts to look like solid smoke - translucent, with a bluish tint. Aerogel is an incredibly good thermal insulator. A famous photo of material showing a blowtorch flame on one side of a thin slab aerogel, on the other side of an unmelted Crayola crayon! NASA's Mars rovers use black colored aerogel (black is used to reduce infrared transmission). The Stardust spacecraft uses aerogel to capture particles from comets and interstellar space. According to NASA, the aerogel block is the size of a human will weigh only 455 grams (about 1 pound), but will be able to support objects weighing up to half a ton. Aerogel is expensive to manufacture, so you won't be able to pick some up at your local store, check... Not yet.

        Aerogel is a solid form of matter, the second least dense solid in the world. The density is 3kg/ m3. The most common aerogel is silicon aerogel, which was first developed by American scientist Kistler in 1931. There are many kinds of aerogel, silicon series, carbon series, sulfur series, metal oxide series, metal series and so on. aerogel is a combinatorial word, where aero is an adjective meaning to fly, and gel is obviously a gel. It literally means gel that can fly. gel of any substance can be called aerogel as long as it can be dried to remove the internal solvent, and can basically keep its shape unchanged, and the product has high porosity and low density.
        Because of its extremely low density, the current lightest silicon aerogel is only 0.16 mg per cubic centimeter, slightly less dense than air, so it is also called "frozen smoke" or "blue smoke". Because the particles inside are so small (on the nanometer scale), visible light scatters less when it passes through it (Rayleigh scattering), just like sunlight passes through air. Therefore, it also looks blue like the sky (if nothing else is mixed with it), and a little red when viewed against the light. (The sky is blue, while the evening sky is red). Since more than 80% of the aerogel is generally air, it has a very good thermal insulation effect, and an inch thick aerogel is equivalent to 20 to 30 pieces of ordinary glass. Even if the aerogel is placed between the rose and the flame, the rose will remain intact. Aerogel also has a variety of uses in space exploration, using it on the Russian "Peace" space station and the American "Mars Pathfinder" probe. Aerogel is also used in particle physics experiments as a detector of the Cerenkov effect. A particle discriminator called Aerogel Cherenkov Counter (ACC), located in the Belle experimental detector at the B-Meson Factory, a high-energy accelerator research facility, is a recent example. The detector utilizes the aerogel's low refraction coefficient between liquid and gas, as well as its high light transmittance and solid properties, which are superior to conventional methods using cryogenic liquids or high-pressure air. At the same time, its lightweight nature is also one of the advantages.

         Aerogels are mainly used in:
        1. Making Spacesuits for Mars Exploration In 2002, NASA set up a company to make aerogels that are stronger and more resilient. NASA has now confirmed that astronauts will wear spacesuits made of new aerogel during their 2018 expedition to Mars. Mark Krajewski, a senior scientist at the company, said that as long as an 18-millimeter-thick aerogel layer is added to the suit, it can help astronauts withstand temperatures of 1,300 degrees Celsius and ultra-low temperatures of minus 130 degrees Celsius. "It's the best thermostatic material I've ever seen." "Mark said.
        2. The aerogel of the Stardust probe is the second important use of the new aerogel. The NASA company is testing shelters and military vehicles built out of aerogel. According to the test situation in the laboratory, if a layer of aerogel about 6 mm thick is added to the metal sheet, then even if it is directly exploded, it will not hurt the metal sheet.
        3, can deal with ecological disasters Environmental protection is the third important role of the new aerogel. Scientists affectionately refer to aerogel as a "super sponge" because it has millions of small holes on its surface, making it ideal for absorbing contaminants in water. An aerogel invented by US scientists can now suck lead and mercury out of water. According to the scientist, the aerogel is an excellent material for dealing with ecological disasters, such as the 72,000 tons of crude oil spilled after the sinking of the Sea Express tanker in 1996, which would not have caused severe contamination of the entire coast.
       4, the tennis racket hit more powerful new aerogel will also enter the future of each of us daily life. For example, Dunlop Sports Equipment in the United States has successfully developed a tennis racket containing aerogel. This tennis racket is said to hit the ball better; Earlier this year, 66-year-old Bob Stoker became the first Briton to use aerogel in a home: "The insulation worked so well that I lowered the temperature of the air conditioner by 5C and it was still very comfortable." Mountaineers are also hopeful about the use of aerogel. British mountaineer Anni Parment used some of the aerogel material in his shoes when he climbed Mount Everest last year, and his sleeping bag has a layer of the new material.