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People did the calculation: radiative cooling requires smaller surface area than solar panels. So, basically, a solar panel itself can radiate heat. Have you d
by killerstorm 8mo ago
People did the calculation: radiative cooling requires smaller surface area than solar panels. So, basically, a solar panel itself can radiate heat.
Have you done a calculation yourself?
- Numerlor 8mo agoHow can the solar panel itself radiate heat when it's being heated up generating supplying power? Looking at pictures of the ISS there's radiators that look like they're there specifically to cool the solar panels. And even if viable, why would you just not cool using air down on earth? Water is used for cooling because it increases effectiveness significantly, but even a closed loop system with simple dry air heat exchangers is quite a lot more effective than radiative cooling
- Symmetry 8mo agoYou take the amount of energy absorbed by the solar panels and subtract the amount they radiate. Most things in physics are linear systems that work like this.
- killerstorm 8mo agoIt would be way more productive for you to ask these questions to ChatGPT or similar AI with reasoning. Equations are quite simple. But I'm not going to dump it into a HN comment. You don't have experience of being in space, so your "intuition" about cooling is worth literally nothing without formulas / numbers
- drtz 8mo agoThe same radiative (radiant) cooling on Earth works almost just as well, but without the cost of a rocket launch.
- killerstorm 8mo agoIt absolutely isn't - on Earth you emission from the environment which is so much warmer than deep space. Why do you just make shit up?