4 ms·
> the moons daytime temperature hits 110C The notion of temperature is quite weird on the Moon. There's no air over there, and temperature does not make sense
by credit_guy 5y ago
> the moons daytime temperature hits 110C
The notion of temperature is quite weird on the Moon. There's no air over there, and temperature does not make sense in a vacuum. Or rather, there's some type of temperature, but it does not affect the solar panels, simply because the solar panels of countless satellites work just fine.
One could say that the 110C refers to the temperature of the regolith. But that's only if the regolith is directly exposed to the sun, which obviously will not be the case for the regolith underneath the solar panels. And even if it were the case, you can make the supports of the solar panels to be thermally insulating, and again, since there's no air, there won't be any way for the heat to travel from the regolith to the panels.
- Retric 5y agoIt’s not quite that simple as over 2 weeks of sunlight heat conducts a fair distance. Also, the regolith emits IR radiation so a shadow wouldn’t be nearly as cool in the daytime. That said, there are options simply being further from the equator directly translates to lower daytime temperatures, but that also means lower subsurface temperatures. Really the point isn’t it’s impossible to use solar on the moon, just significantly more difficult than on a satellite.