Nanotech & Space Exploration - Nasa's thinking small...

Good morning planet Earth! Just passed by an interesting feature on Nasa's site; it's about Nanotech and the future of space exploration and that's what Jarno likes! It explains that Nanotech is about more then just shrinking things, because when deliberately ordering and structuring matter @the molecular level, amazing new properties sometimes emerge.

Currently all trendy in the nanotech-world and a great example of this: The Carbon Nanotube! (see drunk nanotube above). Did you know that carbon can occur as graphite or as diamond and that the only difference lies in the specific 'arrangement of the carbon atoms'? Anyways, when scientists arrange the same carbon atoms into a "chicken wire" pattern and roll them up into miniscule tubes only 10 atoms across, you get the so-called Nanotubes. And they are very very strong (100 times steel) & light & act as great conductors & semiconductors, so that's all just great. Because of these rather extraordinary traits carbon nanotubes can be used for all kinds of things: a strong cable for a space elevator, as molecular wires for nano-scale electronics (see what IBM's doing) or as tiny rods and gears in nano-scale machines (watch a Nanofactory Animation Movie here), but that would just represent the short term...

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