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How hot do you think black objects in space get? Something like 10°C. Look up thermal equilibrium of an ideal black body.
by svantana 4mo ago
How hot do you think black objects in space get? Something like 10°C. Look up thermal equilibrium of an ideal black body.
- adastra22 4mo agoIn the vicinity of the Earth, they get to about the temperature of the Earth. That’s not a coincidence. Hotter if they are actively generating heat.
- Geof25 4mo agoSo you can have datacenters in space, you are just not allowed to use them
- jeltz 4mo agoNot using them would also solve all issues with cosmic radiation.
- Symmetry 4mo agoNobody (sane) is talking about putting nuclear reactors on Satellites in close Earth orbit so we don't have to worry about them generating heat. They've got solar panels that move some of the solar energy they absorb to a central location which presents problems in moving the waste heat back out so that spot doesn't get too hot. But that doesn't change the overall equilibrium temperature.
- adastra22 4mo agoRunning a data center generates heat.
- Symmetry 4mo agoNot if you first absorb heat with your solar panels. Conservation of energy and all that.
- adastra22 4mo agoI'm not sure if you're being serious or not? Any use of power turns useful work into heat (conservation of energy and all that), which raises the temperature of the satellite, until radiative cooling can equalize within incoming heat (solar irradiation).
- robotresearcher 4mo agoYou’re ignoring where the power comes from. Unless you take it up there with you (eg. nuclear material) it has to come from the sun, so you can’t use or emit more energy than the sun hit you with. You can move it around in space and time, but you can’t get on average hotter than a lump of rock in the same spot.
- philipallstar 4mo agoBut are they doing work internally that generates heat? Genuine question.
- Schiendelman 4mo agoThey are. But only as much heat as they get from the solar radiation that's hitting them anyway. Exactly that amount.
- saalweachter 4mo agoExcept you aren't leaving that heat in place. You're concentrating it into a very small area of compute. If you don't spread that heat back out, it's going to find a much higher thermal equilibrium than the solar panels themselves would find just absorbing the sunlight and radiating the energy back into space. It's like you've pointed a magnifying glass at your compute, except with electricity, which means you can reach temperatures higher than you can with a magnifying glass.
- Schiendelman 4mo agoI guess I'm curious: all the comments I see about this act as if the people proposing putting data centers in space are complete idiots. Do you believe they are complete idiots?
- saalweachter 4mo agoNo, I think they're charlatans.
- senordevnyc 4mo agoIf they’re actually serious about this, they could simply address the points about cooling that numerous experts have raised. But they haven’t done that, at least not that I’ve seen. I have no idea whether they’re complete idiots, and I don’t really care. Maybe it’s idiocy, maybe it’s hubris, maybe it’s a grift, I have no idea. But until I see a compelling solution to this known problem, or a compelling suggestion as to why they’re not sharing a solution, I’ll continue to think they aren’t particularly smart or serious about this.