@[email protected] to Not The [email protected]English • 22 days agoReflect Orbital sells sunlight at night, but don't trust that fancy videomashable.comexternal-linkmessage-square30fedilinkarrow-up170arrow-down14file-textcross-posted to: [email protected]
arrow-up166arrow-down1external-linkReflect Orbital sells sunlight at night, but don't trust that fancy videomashable.com@[email protected] to Not The [email protected]English • 22 days agomessage-square30fedilinkfile-textcross-posted to: [email protected]
minus-square@[email protected]linkfedilinkEnglish10•edit-222 days ago“I want a spot, but I want all of my sunlight focused onto a spot about a centimeter across. I’ll give you the coordinates.”
minus-square@[email protected]linkfedilinkEnglish1•22 days agoBecause the sun is not a point source but a disk half a degree across, you can’t focus the sun tighter than about a 1km spot from a mirror in low earth orbit.
minus-square@[email protected]linkfedilinkEnglish1•22 days agoOkay but can we make that 1 km hot enough to burn everything inside of it? For science of course.
“I want a spot, but I want all of my sunlight focused onto a spot about a centimeter across. I’ll give you the coordinates.”
Because the sun is not a point source but a disk half a degree across, you can’t focus the sun tighter than about a 1km spot from a mirror in low earth orbit.
Okay but can we make that 1 km hot enough to burn everything inside of it?
For science of course.