Comment on am i stupid or are solar panel's efficiency independent on latitude

spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  “The sun rays go through less atmosphere near the poles”?

  I think you meant to say sunlight goes through more atmosphere near the poles, but otherwise nice quick sketch diagram 👍

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  • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I had so much fun making the image I totally the words

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    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I totally the words

      The whole thing!

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• gedaliyah@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You can actually see this in action. At sunrise or sunset, it is possible to look directly toward the sun. That’s because more light is scattered at that angle and so it is less direct. At noon, the same sun will sear your eyes.

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• Thorry84@feddit.nl ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Please note whilst the jist of this diagram is correct, it’s not drawn properly. The sun is so far away and much larger than the Earth. This means sunlight is about as parallel as it can be once it gets to Earth. So the lines aren’t going through the atmosphere at different angles. The angle is the same, but since the Earth is a sphere it will travel through more atmosphere before hitting the ground.

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• 200ok@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Helpful diagram. Thank you!

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• gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  isn’t the atmosphere transparent for most of the light, though? (except UV, but that gets filtered out even at the equator, so it’s the same everywhere again)

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  • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It isn’t perfectly transparent, because it has dust, moisture, and other particles in the air that block or deflect a portion of the light.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      thank you, i’ll consider this the best answer as it names both dust and moisture as reasons why sunlight is blocked.

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