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I don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is
by WhyNotHugo 1mo ago
I don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is dissipating heat, not keeping things warm. People freezing when they fall into the vacuum of space is pure fiction: that would only happen near an atmosphere.
- indrex 1mo agoTopical - that’s the problem to solve for orbital data centers
- gspr 1mo agoYou still have radiative transfer. The instruments in question probably take significantly less power in than they lose through radiation. So they need to be given extra power to maintain temperature. I.e. they need to be heated.
- nuccy 1mo agoThe heat is dissipated by radiation, that's why apart of solar panels all sattelites and space stations also have radiators for thermal management. The average space temperature (far away from stars) is 2.7K (the temperature of cosmic microwave background, CMB), so going below that is hard. Sun would heat up a bit Voyager 2 but at 143au it is just 1/143^2 fraction of solar power on Earth orbit, thus 0.0049%, or just 0.067W/m^2, so extra power is needed to maintain electronics operational.
- hnuser123456 1mo agoIt has everywhere to dissipate heat, but only radiatively. But 140 AU from the Sun, there's not much incoming radiant flux.