Paper-Thin Super Material Stops Microbullets

Analysis by Alyssa Danigelis
Wed Nov 14, 2012 08:27 AM ET
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Bulletproofing for soldiers and law enforcement officers has lightened up considerably in recent years, but it promises get insanely thin with new nanotechnology coming out of MIT and Rice University.
A team of mechanical engineering and materials scientists created special materials that were able to stop bullets in the lab. The group, which included Rice research scientist Jae-Hwang Lee and School of Engineering dean Ned Thomas, recently published their findings in Nature Communications (abstract).
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The type of material, called a structured polymer composite, can actually self-assemble into alternating glassy and rubbery layers. When performing ballistic tests on the material at MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, those 20-nanometer-thick layers were able to stop a 9-millimeter bullet and seal the entryway behind it, according to a Rice University article.

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However, one of the challenges to making thinner and lighter protective gear is being able to test new, promising materials effectively in the lab. Researchers need to know precisely why those nanolayers are so good at dissipating energy, but analyzing the polymer can take days.
So the MIT-Rice team also came up with an innovative testing method, where they shot tiny glass beads at the material. Although the beads were only a millionth of a meter in size, they simulated bullet impacts, according to MIT News. Under a scanning electron microscope the material's layers look like corduroy so the projectile impact can be seen clearly.
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The nanomaterial, along with improved impact testing, could translate into safety beyond vests. According to the researchers, these advancements could accelerate progress on protective coatings for satellites and even jet engine turbine blades.
Meanwhile the team has a disk of the bullets trapped in the clear material to show any skeptics. Ned Thomas told Rice University, "This would be a great ballistic windshield material."
Photo: Rice University scientists Ned Thomas (left) and Jae-Hwang Lee with the material that stopped three bullets. Credit: Tommy LaVergne, Rice University

'Rogue planet' spotted 100 light-years away

This modest dot is "rogue" planet CFBDSIR2149-0403, as seen in the infrared

Astronomers have spotted a "rogue planet" - wandering the cosmos without a star to orbit - 100 light-years away.

Recent finds of such planets have suggested that they may be common, but candidates have eluded close study.
The proximity of the new rogue planet has allowed astronomers to guess its age: a comparatively young 50-120 million years old.
The planet, dubbed CFBDSIR2149-0403, is outlined in a paper posted online to appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Rogue planets are believed to form in one of two ways: in much the same way as planets bound to stars, coalescing from a disk of dust and debris but then thrown out of a host star's orbit, or in much the same way as stars but never reaching a full star's mass.
One tricky part is determining if rogue planet candidates are as massive as the "failed stars" known as brown dwarfs, further along in stellar evolution but without enough mass to spark the nuclear fusion that causes starlight.
Either way, the objects end up free of a host star's gravity. Given that most planets we know of are found through the effects they have on their host star's light, pinning down rogue planets has proven difficult.
An international team went on a vast hunt for the planets using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and came up with just one candidate.

VLT studies allowed first guesses as to the planet's composition, as seen in this artist's impression

"This object was discovered during a scan that covered the equivalent of 1,000 times the [area] of the full moon," said study co-author Etienne Artigau of the University of Montreal.
"We observed hundreds of millions of stars and planets, but we only found one homeless planet in our neighbourhood."
But crucially, the new find appears to be moving along with a similarly itinerant group of celestial objects, called the "AB Doradus moving group" - a collection of about 30 stars which are of roughly the same composition and are believed to have formed at about the same time.
Because CFBDSIR2149-0403 appears to be moving with the group - to a certainty of 87% - astronomers believe it too formed with the stars, about 50 -120 million years ago.
It is this estimate of age that allows astronomers to use computer models of planet evolution to make further guesses as to the planet's mass and temperature.
The team believe it has a temperature of about 400C and a mass between four and seven times that of Jupiter - well short of the mass limit that would make it a likely brown dwarf.
What remains unclear is just how the planet came to be - the tiny beginnings of a star, or planet launched from its home? Study co-author Philippe Delorme of the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble, said that the latter implied a great many planets like it.
"If this little object is a planet that has been ejected from its native system, it conjures up the striking image of orphaned worlds, drifting in the emptiness of space," he said.

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Paper-Thin Super Material Stops Microbullets

'Rogue planet' spotted 100 light-years away

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