Physicists Just Smashed a Record by Keeping a Bubble Intact For Over a Year - ScienceAlert

"We show that covering a bubble water shell with microparticles inhibits gravity-induced drainage and that further adding glycerol leads to a stable state, wherein the evaporation of water is counterbalanced by the hygroscopicity of glycerol, which absorbs water molecules contained in ambient air," they write in their paper.

Soap bubbles were included as a point of comparison, and the team also constructed gas marbles of nylon particles and water, and nylon particles and a mix of water and glycerol.

The nylon particles prevent the bubble membrane from draining away gravitationally; the glycerol, absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, replenishes that which evaporates away.

The team also constructed a detailed model of the material's properties, and used that model to create other structures, such as a pyramid stretched over a metal frame, by dipping it in the material and slowly lifting it out. At least one of the pyramids the team created survived for 378 days at the time they wrote the paper.