Silica aerogel is a nanostructural material with high porosities, a large inner surface area, and low thermal conductivity]. It has lots of potential applications in various areas due to its unique properties, such as thermal insulators under high temperature, collectors of hypervelocity particles in space, adsorbents and extracts agent, etc.
In recent years, NASA is deal with silica aerogels which has become a very popular material. The main reason for this interest is the availability of space applications.
(image credit Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
