4 ms·
That is often considered, but the light is absorbed and turns into heat. Where does that heat go? It would fry the electronics with no way to get rid of it.
by SEJeff 7y ago
That is often considered, but the light is absorbed and turns into heat. Where does that heat go? It would fry the electronics with no way to get rid of it.
- kevingadd 7y agoYou could use some mechanisms to convert and dissipate the heat, though that doesn't come for free. Though the atmospheric pressure at that altitude is pretty low, you might be able to rig up some sort of peltier cooler setup to dissipate heat. Alternately if you can convert enough of the heat to electricity some other way, you could convert the heat back to light using LEDs or something and only turn on the ones facing away from earth, perhaps? Plenty of other orbital devices have to deal with heat so I'm sure this is something that has existing solutions.
- rtkwe 7y agoPeltier coolers won't do anything but draw power and create more heat you have to dissipate, they're not magic you have to remove the heat from the hot side too which means you need radiators for them too plus more than you'd need originally because peltier coolers are quite inefficient. Same thing with the LED idea converting that heat into electricity requires some heat differential which requires... a radiator.
- DuskStar 7y ago> Alternately if you can convert enough of the heat to electricity some other way Thermodynamics says "lolnope", I'm afraid. You need a temperature differential to convert heat to power.