If there was steal between earth and the sun instead of a vacuum

[marsh8472]

I'm witnessing an argument elsewhere about whether a vacuum is a good insulator in space.

Person 1 said this:

Incorrect. If that lack of matter, which allowed the passage of energy in the form of light with great ease, was instead replaced with matter as dense as steel, heat transference would be, in comparison, severely limited. This planet would then be a frozen husk.

Person 2 said this:

So if steel was between us and the sun instead of vacuum the metal closest to the sun would be heated into hot gasses, the steal farther out would be heated to the point of liquid after that the steel would be solid but white then red hot the father you moved out.

The Earth's orbit would be somewhere between the liquid steel and the red hot steel, either way we would be cooked idiot.

I said this:

I know the R-value in terms of insulation increases as you increase the thickness of the material. I'm not sure if a sun could heat all the way through 93 million miles of solid steel. This is considering that the steel is surrounding the sun kinda like a Dyson's sphere.

The Earth's inner core is about the same temperature as the sun yet the core is not able to heat through to the outter layers of the earth.

I think this would do a good job blocking all of the suns radient heat and wouldn't be much good at heating up anything outside of it. Maybe this Dyson-like sphere might feel slighty warm to the touch on the outside?

what would really happen if the vacuum between us and the sun were replaced with steel?

 

[Academic]

I think a vacuum is the best insulator.

edit - but in the steady state, it may not make any difference. The sun would heat up the steel until its in equilibrium and then it would heat the Earth until the Earth is at equilibrium.

 

[marsh8472]

I think a vacuum is the best insulator.

edit - but in the steady state, it may not make any difference. The sun would heat up the steel until its in equilibrium and then it would heat the Earth until the Earth is at equilibrium.

Yes this is what I'm after, the steady state after the sun has been explosed to steel 63 million miles thick. Once equilibrium is reached, what would be the tempuratures along the steel sphere surrounding the sun. Given that the surface of the sun is around 6,000 Kelvin. This should be a relatively easy thing to calculate right?

 

[marsh8472]

I think a vacuum is the best insulator.

edit - but in the steady state, it may not make any difference. The sun would heat up the steel until its in equilibrium and then it would heat the Earth until the Earth is at equilibrium.

well actually according to this:

You might be surprised to know that the atmosphere of the Sun is actually hotter than its surface. As you rise above the surface of the Sun, the temperature rises in a region called the chromosphere. Just 2,000 km above the surface of the Sun, and temperatures have risen to 100,000 Kelvin. Above the chromosphere is a transition zone where temperatures get up to 1 million Kelvin. The outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere is the corona, where temperatures get to several million degrees Kelvin. Scientists don't actually know why this region gets so hot, but they think it has something to do with magnetic reconnection, where the Sun's magnetic field lines get twisted up, break and then reconnect.

the atmosphere of the sun gets pretty hot so I'm not even sure what would be an appropriate value to use as a tempurature. It would be nice to have an equation where I can input my own core temperature and see the various tempuratures of the steel at distances from the sun.

 

[Academic]

I don't think it would have any effect in the steady state. Once you are in equilibrium it would be the same.

Consider the power radiated from the sun, just outside of its surface. This must be equal to the power being radiated at some far distance, due to conservation of energy. If you put something in between that won't change this, the sun is still pumping out energy and that energy will still flow out. (Im ignoring the possibility that the metal could reflect energy back into the sun, thus changing the equilibrium position)

 

[Lsos]

I'm not sure it would make a difference. Surely the steel would take longer to transfer the heat to the Earth (through a vacuum it gets transferred at the speed of light), but once the heat started flowing, I would think it would continue to flow at the same rate.

I imagine even if we put the best insulator between us and the sun, the same thing would happen.

Remember, the Earth's interior is a set temperature, and it's not making energy. The sun IS making energy, and that energy has to go somewhere. If something is keeping that energy in, then the sun will simply get hotter until the insulator gets rendered useless.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't think it would have any effect in the steady state. Once you are in equilibrium it would be the same

Exactly.

 

[n.karthick]

But I think in the other way. I feel the Person 2 is right.
Assuming 'x' amount of energy is coming from Sun to Earth. Since nothing is there, vacuum is a perfect insulator and energy is only radiated, but if we assume steel is there, then it will conduct heat and so lot of heat will reach Earth isn't?

 

[Phrak]

The sun would be hotter in steady state conditions. Does this make a difference?