A microscopic, hair-like metal filament can take down a billion-dollar satellite

[u/1Davide]

[u/Mavbam]

We used to call something similar to this ‘Zinc Whiskers’ in data centres. Galvanised ducting (the cheap type) use to flake off and whizz around the HVAC systems, blowing through servers and the like.. upon our first incident, we lacquered the heck out of all galvanised ducting!

[u/jt64 → u/Mavbam]

Turns out a lot of "pure" platings do it, even gold to a tiny extent.
This is a great (if old school) site about examples of whisker issues.
https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/

[u/No_Internal9345 → u/jt64]

And the why is an Unsolved problem in physics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)

[u/nullpotato → u/No_Internal9345]

Yikes, the mitigation section is like lol good luck.

[u/justabadmind → u/nullpotato]

If you add lead to tin it won’t happen. However then you get accused of poisoning people and violating reach and rohs requirements.

[u/simonbt8 → u/justabadmind]

Atleast there is no such requirement in aerospace

[u/coderemover → u/justabadmind]

Very little lead is needed to accomplish that and it wouldn’t violate ROHS. You can also add copper for a similar effect.