A potential game changer in the field of space robotics. Normally, when you melt metal, the atoms move about randomly, and when cooled, they solidify in a random arrangement. Metallic glass isn’t a mixture of metal and glass — on the contrary, it’s metal that is heated and cooled quickly to the perfect temperature to trap it in a crystalline state. The crystalline state effectively turns metal into glass.

These gears are perfect for brutally cold environments, such as Mars. The gears can function without any sort of lubrication even at the coldest temperatures.  Curiosity, the rover currently on Mars, has to heat up the gear lubricant every time it needs to change position. With these new metallic glass gears, a rover could function on Jupiter’s moon Europa, which never gets warmer than -260 degrees F (-160 C) without the need for gear lubricant.

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