Furnace in spaaaace!

It's been quite a while since I posted anything sciency, but in my defense the news hasn't been that inspiring. Mostly nonsense, sadly.

But now, for the New Year something exciting. A new company called Space Forge has lit a furnace in orbit that can reach 1000 degrees Celcius. 

A UK-based company has successfully powered up a microwave-sized space factory in orbit, proving it can run a 1,000C furnace to manufacture ultra-pure semiconductor materials in microgravity. "The work that we're doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today," says Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge.

Higher purity metals and semi-conductors means smaller, faster chips, stronger materials and etc. My favorite science fiction material is iron whisker crystals, which are known to be ridiculously stronger than regular high-tensile steel. In a zero-gravity furnace you could grow iron whiskers of any desired length, in industrial quantities. And who knows, maybe they can make graphene and buckytubes as well. 

Exciting times, my friends!