3 ms·
That may be the case, but why would it radiate on the non-star facing side? Take the JWT for example: no-one looking back at that would see anything higher than
by Hallucinaut 5y ago
That may be the case, but why would it radiate on the non-star facing side? Take the JWT for example: no-one looking back at that would see anything higher than -50 degrees Celsius.
If the point was to capture energy then anything radiating from the non-star facing side suggests inefficiency.
Even if the solar energy has limits, why wouldn't they use waste heat to support, say, plant growth?
Not that I think it is a mega-structure, it's just it doesn't strike me as lack of IR emissions as being that informative.
- contravariant 5y agoThe JWT is a perfectly good example of this, it's not hot compared to the sun but it's way hotter than the cosmic background. And that's if you're just reflecting light back to the sun, when you try to extract meaningful work from it you'll have to absorb a lot more energy.