The samples in Elsila's study came from four
squares of aluminium foil, each about 1 centimetre across, that sat next to a lightweight sponge - like «aerogel» that was designed to capture dust from the comet's atmosphere, or coma.
To create this exotic state
of matter, researchers at the FLASH facility in Hamburg, Germany, took a thin piece
of aluminium foil and blasted it with an X-ray laser that generated about 10 million gigawatts
of power per
square centimetre.