| ▲ | fnordpiglet 9 hours ago | |||||||
Basically you concentrate the heat into a high emissivity high temperature material that’s facing deep space and is shaded. Radiators get dramatically smaller as temperature goes up because radiation scales as T⁴ (Stefan–Boltzmann). There are many cases in space where you need to radiate heat - see Kerbal Space Program | ||||||||
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 9 hours ago | parent [-] | |||||||
"High emissivity, high temperature" sounds good on paper, but to create that temperature gradient within your spacecraft the way you want costs a lot of energy. What you actually do is add a shit load of surface area to your spacecraft, give that whole thing a coating that improves its emissivity, and try your hardest to minimize the thermal gradient from the heat source (the hot part) throughout the radiator. Emissivity isn't going past 1 in that equation, and you're going to have a very hard time getting your radiator to be hotter than your heat source. Note that KSP is a game that fictionalizes a lot of things, and sizes of solar panels and radiators are one of those things. | ||||||||
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