Particles of soot floating through the air and comets hurtling through space have at least one thing in common: 0.36. That, reports a research group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is the measure of how dense they will get under normal conditions, and it’s a value that seems to be constant for similar aggregates across an impressively wide size range, from nanometers to tens of meters.*

NIST hopes the results will help in the development of future measurement standards to aid climate researchers and others who need to measure and understand the behavior of aerosols like carbon soot in the atmosphere.

Soot comes mostly from combustion and is considered the second biggest driver of global warming, according to NIST chemist Christopher Zangmeister. It is made up of small round particles of carbon about 10 or 20 nanometers across. The particles stick together randomly in short chains and clumps of a half dozen or more spheres. These, in turn, clump loosely together to form larger, loose aggregates of 10 or more which, over a few hours, will compact into a somewhat tighter ball which is atmospheric soot.

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