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IN AUGUST 2018 WE COLLECTED A LARGE AND SPECTACULAR SET OF 3D CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY DATA ON A COLLOIDPOLYMER SAMPLE THAT HAS BEEN KINETICALLY-ARRESTED IN MICROGRAVITY FOR APPROXIMATELY 100 MILLION SECONDS FAR LONGER THAN ANY OTHER SIMILAR SAMPLE HAS EVER BEEN OBSERVED BY SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE. OUR ACE-M2R EXPERIMENT IS RUN WITH THE NEW CONFOCAL-MICROSCOPY CAPABILITY OF THE LIGHT MICROSCOPY MODULE (LMM) IN THE FLUIDS INTEGRATION RACK (FIR) ABOARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS). WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY OBSERVED THE SAMPLE WITH FLUORESCENCE MICROSCOPY (ACE-M2 EXPERIMENT) AND MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY (BCAT-KP EXPERIMENT). THIS UNIQUE COMBINATION OF MULTIPLE EXPERIMENTS IN MICROGRAVITY HAS GIVEN US THE UNPRECEDENTED ABILITY TO INTERROGATE THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF OUR SAMPLES OVER EIGHT ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE IN TIME SCALE (SECONDS TO YEARS) AND FIVE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE IN LENGTH-SCALE (MICRONS TO CENTIMETERS). THERE IS SIMPLY NO OTHER FACILITY IN EXISTENCE BESIDES THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION THAT WOULD ALLOW US TO CONDUCT THIS BROAD-RANGING SET OF EXPERIMENTS. WE BELIEVE THAT THE FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS WE ARE LEARNING ABOUT THE LONG-TERM STABILITY OF OUR PRECISELY-FORMULATED COLLOID-POLYMER MIXTURES MAY PROVIDE SIGNIFICANT INSIGHT INTO THE STABILITY OF A WIDE-RANGE OF COMPLEX FLUIDS THAT MAY PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN HUMAN EXPLORATION OF SPACE BEYOND LOW-EARTH ORBIT (LEO) AND LONG-TERM HABITATION.

$270,000FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA

President And Fellows Of Harvard College

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