this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
122 points (91.8% liked)
Technology
78544 readers
5358 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe a stupid question, but you'd have to have something to hold the really hot thing, right? And obviously you'd need a bunch of stuff connected to the furnace to keep it in orbit and supplied with energy. So in that case wouldn't the heat from the thing being heated spread to the rest of the satellite anyways? Like, clearly you can't just use non-conductive materials because then we'd already have that on earth.
Not stupid at all, that's an excellent question! I'm not privy to the details of this furnace satellite but I have an idea or two on how I'd approach the problem. Pure (somewhat educated) speculation ahead.
Firstly, you mentioned nonconductive materials. Insulating material isn't perfectly nonconductive but can get pretty close. I'd imagine combining insulation with the vacuum of space would limit conductive heat transfer between furnace and the other equipment.
Insulating and limiting the conductive transfer of heat doesn't eliminate it though. You'd still need an active form of transfer to shed the heat. I'd investigate the feasibility of a convective heat exchanger; use coolant to transfer heat from the furnace to a radiator.
From there I'd study how the James Webb Space Telescope maintains equilibrium. It uses a reflective shade to shield the radiator from the sun but I lack specific knowledge of the design. The temperature difference between hot side and cold side is a driving factor in heat transfer; maximizing the difference between the two leads to more efficient, effective control.
Honestly though, its been a few years since my senior heat transfer course. Radiative heat transfer in the vacuum of space is Master's if not PhD level specialization. I'm not at that level yet, so please take this answer with a large block of pink Himalayan salt.