Space-age metals: freed from gravity, materials reveal their mysteries.(includes related article on use of metallic glass in golf clubs)(Cover Story)

From: Science News | Date: October 24, 1998| Author: | Copyright information

Materials research on space shuttles allows scientists to take advantage of extremely low gravity in conducting experiments on liquid metals. Microgravity lets them to explore dendritic growth, immiscible alloys and organic molecules that model metals.

Gravity can be a real drag--especially to scientists trying to observe how liquid metals mix together (or fail to) and how they freeze into solids. Researchers would love to alloy gold with rhodium in order to produce high-temperature electrical contacts, for example. Others want to study the atom-to-atom interactions of cooling metals ...

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