- "A fuel tube inside the thrusters has filled up with silicon dioxide, a side effect of age within the spacecraft’s fuel tank."

Where the heck do you get SiO2 from on a spacecraft? Some kind of silicone?

edit: "clogged with silicon dioxide, a byproduct that appears with age from a rubber diaphragm in the spacecraft’s fuel tank"[0] —I'm guessing that is a silicone rubber. I didn't know that rubber can decompose into sand.

[0] https://science.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-program/voyager-1/...