| ▲ | terminalshort 11 hours ago | |
You forgot about the background. The background temp at Earths distance from the sun is around 283K. Room temperature is around 293K, and a computer can operate at 363K. So for an object at 283K the radiation will be (293^4 - 283^4) = , and a computer will be (363^4 - 283^4) (293^4 - 283^4) = 9.55e8 (363^4 - 283^4) = 1.09e10 So about 10x I have no problem with your other numbers which I left out as I was just making a very rough estimate. | ||
| ▲ | uplifter 8 hours ago | parent [-] | |
The background temp at Earth's orbit is due to the incidence of solar flux, which I took account of. I'm assuming the radiators are shaded from that flux by the rest of the satellite, for efficiency reasons, so we don't need to account for solar flux directly heating up the radiators themselves and reducing their efficiency. In the shade, the radiators emission is relative to the background temp of empty space, which is only 2.7 K[0]. I did neglect to account for that temperature, that's true, but it should be negligible in its effects (for our rough estimate purposes). [0] https://sciencenotes.org/how-cold-is-space-what-is-its-tempe... | ||