• 0x0@lemmy.zip
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    13 hours ago

    Heat is radiated into the vacuum for free,

    Is it though?

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Granted I never made it further than freshman level physics in college but doesn’t heat needs a media to radiate away. Otherwise it just stays in place? So there would be nothing to move the heat away from installation? The ISS uses these big radiators the emit the waste heat as infrared light. That seems like a plausible method to exhaust waste heat. But I don’t have any clue if that can scale up to the level of a huge data center compared to the systems on the ISS

      • ATS1312@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 hours ago

        Heat is energy as “vibration of molecules”. It spreads to adjacent molecules by conduction, unless we have other interesting things going on. Easy stuff.

        Vacuum is the absence of molecules to conduct heat to.

        Wait…

        • cammoblammo@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Well, it can also radiate away in the form of EM radiation, typically infrared. That takes time though.