In deep craters near the Moon’s poles, permanent shadows keep the surface even colder — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has measured temperatures lower than -410°F (-246°C)
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 month ago
INB4 chumps discover that cooling hardware in a vacuum is, in fact, quite difficult.
tfowinder@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s not the issue, though. In a vacuum there is no medium with which to carry the heat away. You can’t send it into the air with fans or heat sinks because there isn’t any air.
At least on the moon you could sink it into the ground. But in orbit you don’t have that luxury. This is a major problem that spacecraft and satellite designs need to work around, and much effort is expended in that department.
Even though space is generally considered “cold,” in the absence of a medium to sink heat into the best you can do is rely on infrared radiation which is not terribly effective.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 month ago
It’s done for smaller parts with peltiers nowadays. Not that efficient, but there are few options. If you sink it to a large enough surface, it will radiate away.
huquad@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
And there inlies the problem. Big surfaces are expensive to ship
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 1 month ago
What if me make a heat laser? /s
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You joke, but actually that is a thing.
When research projects involve super-cooling a substance, after you’ve done as much as you can with convective cooling, researchers will sometimes use lasers to cancel out vibrations within the substance, and cancelling vibrations essentially equals cooling.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Lol, this is the truth. There are many cool opportunities for industry in space, but I gotta be honest, I don’t think datacenters are one of them…