this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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would be great to have some solar that would power a beacon or something if it ever entered another star system.
Radiation and cold would have killed any electronics long before it would get to another system. And with the electronics dead, nothing would be able to tell the beacon to activate.
Is there radiation between stars? I'm sure it's cold tho.
Plenty. Unfortunately it's mostly the nasty damaging kind, rather than the sort that can be turned into power. It also doesn't take much damage to add up, when you're dealing with large millennia time scales.
The damaging kind necessarily carries enough energy to cause damage, what's preventing it from being harvested?
Imagine you have a paper balloon setup. It randomly takes hits from a high powered rifle. In theory, you could harvest the energy. However, it's delivered in such powerful, random bursts that capturing it is difficult.
Gamma rays punch straight through the structure of the craft. The actual energy is small (around 1/1,000,000 of a joule), but it's so focused that it damages anything it hits. If it hits the atoms in a transistor, that transistor gets ripped up at an atomic level.
it would destroy them so when heated and energized they would not work?
Wait does solar power work with other suns? Or just our sun (Sol)? Or just yellow dwarf suns?
Dawg you can shine a lightbulb at a solar panel and it'll generate electricity. Them shits don't care, a photon's a photon
Yes and no. Photons is photons, but solar panels do have varying efficiency by light wavelengths, called spectral response.
Are solar panels like superman?
Weak to kryptonite?
Unable to fly if a kitten steps on its cape?
as @zalgotext@sh.itjust.works said. it should depend a bit on how its made. there have been things about making panels that would absorb frequencies we have at night. There are trade offs. I was under the impression that the reason plants are green is because they specialize on the red side which is more prevalent and then the blue because its the most energetic or something. Also I was under the impression most stars look basically white but the color thing is based on spectrums that predominate but like when you look at the sun it looks white and even a red star would look mostly whitish.