The European Space Agency has created its own version of a Lego brick that is 3D printed from meteorite dust, as the organisation explores how to construct buildings in space.
The "space bricks", as Lego and the European Space Agency (ESA) call them, are made using the dust of a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite discovered in 2000 in north-west Africa.
The meteorite dust acts as a stand-in for lunar regolith ? the loose material covering the surface of Earth's moon, which is largely the product of meteorite impacts.
The ESA's Lego-like bricks are made from meteorite dust. Photo courtesy of the ESA
Because only a small amount of regolith exists on Earth ? samples brought back during the Apollo missions ? the scientists settled on the closest substitute they could find. The space brick development is part of the ESA's contribution to the international Artemis programme, which aims to not only return astronauts to the moon but also establish a lunar base there.
Since bringing materials from Earth is considered too expensive and time-consuming, the hope is that lunar regolith can be used to build structures such as launch pads and habitats.
The bricks are made through 3D printing. Photo courtesy of the ESA
In the field of space exploration, this is known as In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) and is the focus of the ESA's Spaceship EAC team, based out of Cologne, Germany.
ESA science officer Aidan Cowley, who heads the lab, said that his team loved "creative constru...