Solar Definition and 1000 Threads

Answers to some mysteries that I've wondered about for a long time. Fast paced with cool biographical details. Part One is good too.

OK I've developed a workable grid tied "wind" inverter, Certified, installed and successfully operating waste flare gas utility grid connected net metering system, with its associated functional usable space heating appreciated with todays -40 degree wind chills. All this fully described...

Has anybody looked at this technology? I came across it in the latest National Geographic magazine in an article about the Pictures of the Year, and it sounds like an interesting idea. https://synhelion.com/ The idea is to use the very high temperatures in the solar collection tower of a...

Hello All, I have some space outside my room which have sunlight all day. The room heats up to very high temperature. Is there any way I could use that heat to cool down my room without using solar panels? Just a thought.

Electric motors and actuators are commonly used when people do solar tracking. But there are some problems. The sun moves really slowly across the sky so the motors must be massively geared down. Also, wind stress is an issue so the motors have to be built strong. This increases the price of...

I have a thought experiment in mind. Crudely speaking, the second law of thermodynamics implies that there is only a finite amount of change possible in the universe. Once this limit is reached, no more change can occur. The key thing here though is reversibility. If changes were reversible...

This video claims that the transmitter is self powered and hence needs no battery or other electric connection. Is this possible? I have never come across an electronic device that runs self-powered. Couple of things I think might happen here: 1. A solar cell in the transmitter? 2. Everytime...

https://www.space.com/sun-magnetic-field-flip-solar-maximum-2024 I know theyre not the same physics. I just wondered if the the Suns 11 year polarity flip has any analogy to the flipping T-wrench effect.

How many particles (approximately) from the solar wind reach deep into the Earth's magnetic field every second. Possibly measured in mass?

The use of interference principles in quantum mechanics to convert solar energy into electrical energy can be represented through the concept of quantum dots, or nanoparticles, which have properties that contribute to enhancing the absorption of light and generating the photoelectric effect...

Hi, I'm planning to embark on a minor research project on Space Weather with a Professor. As part of getting ready for the project, I've been tasked to study certain important aspects of Solar Physics & understand conceptual ideas. Can anybody recommend good books or even descriptive papers on...

I dont know much and you can dumb it down as much as you like or not. I've recently gotten very curious about light propulsion and i was reading that if a laser or beam of light was directed at a solar sail it could generate mass amounts of energy and be used to travel to deep(er) space. I was...

Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder's Book The Chilling Stars mentions Svensmark's paper and experiments that apparently show that global cloud cover is regulated by cosmic rays which is regulated by the sun or solar and geo- magnetic fields. This fits with remarks by MIT Climatology Professor...

I got myself some glasses for the upcoming solar eclipse, but they are very dark! They work fine for looking at the Sun in all its glory, but I suspect I won't ne able to see anything of interest during the eclipse. Does anyone have experience filtering out the harmful UV while still being...

I have a student trying to build a simple solar powered vehicle for a high school design thinking class. He solar panel produces about 3.1 V as measured on a multimeter, but will not power the electric motor she had chosen. She tested the motor with a pair of AA batteries (2.9 V on multimeter)...

I read that the solar wind is a stream of particles, primarily electrons and protons, flowing out from the sun at speeds as high as 900 km/s, and at a temperature of 1 million degrees. Using the equipartition theorem, I calculate that a proton moving at 900,000 meters per second exhibits a...

Hi!!...There's a growing popularity on these transformers as they are being used to get 120/240 split phase out of a single 120v phase, read a recent comment about them not being as safe as an isolated transformer since their inner windings are not isolated....is an encapsulated general purpose...

No Idea what I am expected to disclose here????

If the earth has been revolving around the sun almost perpetually, we should mimic this motion for electric generative purposes or is it not feasible?

If the year started on, for example, 1 March(in some places during the 15th century), two months later than our present year, when was the leap day inserted? Thank you.

hi guys: i plan to make solar collector using rectangular hollow steel bar 4×8cm filled with gravel as heat storage and blow air through it and direct that air as preheated for gas combustion oven to reduce gas consumption .can i use a normal fan or it has to a blower?

It seems as though two advantages to using a solar sail turbine system instead of solar panels would be (1) the sails may not degrade as quickly as the solar panels, and (2) a sail turbine system may be lighter than a solar panel (and therefore less expensive to launch into orbit). The drawback...

I would like to build what is usually used for heat production and is called a solar cooker. However, I would like to use it to try to levitate a piece of metal. Here are my assumptions: A. aluminum density = 2.7 g / cm^3 B. Sunlight intensity on Earth's surface is about 1000 W / m^2 C...

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230329-astronomers-discover-one-of-biggest-black-holes-ever-recorded https://universe.nasa.gov/black-holes/types/ - didn't find this very helpful ESA Euclid mission overview - https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid_overview (to be...

The 2017 total eclipse was awesome and we're going to get another opportunity at totality in the U.S in just over a year from now on Apr. 08, 2024. There will also be an annular eclipse on Oct. 14 this year. Time to start working on those travel plans before all of the hotels are gone. :smile...

TL;DR Summary: Solar sytem forces on Unity Hello ! For my last year in my school, I've got a project to do, and I wanted to recreate the Solar system with forces on Unity. My forces are Velocity and Acceleration (I'm using the Frenet's formulas). I'm sorry I'm not a physicist and that's why...

As the title asks, does the invariable plane of the Solar system have axial precession? And if so, how much and at what rate? I have tried to find an answer to these questions for a while now, but still haven't found any. I recently asked on reddit too, which pointed me to some speculation...

I'm building a replica of the Antikythera Mechanism; a device that was conceived and manufactured around 50BC. it is an orrery and amongst other things it shows the motion of the five known planets, the sun and the moon when viewed from the earth. I've managed to calculate the motion of the...

I would like to make the solar system a bit smarter. The challenge is that the voltage is high (up to 351Vdc) and the solar negative is typically 40-70V UNDER the "system ground". "System ground" is shared among battery negative, charger negative, inverter ground and ground cable digged down...

We're off grid at 57degrees north. Our source of electricity is solar panels, with a diesel generator as backup. The solar has served us well, until this November, where we had almost 8 weeks of 0 sunshine. I got sick of running the generator. It's noisy, it needs refueling, smells... So I...

There are small 15kw electric motors <$500*. LiFePO4 batteries that offer 60kwh** weigh <50kilograms, cost <$500, take as much space as the gas used to take. The hood could be removed or replaced with extra seats or used for cargo. Ultra-lightweight 3D printed magnesium bodies*** should be...

I am trying to design a simple homemade PV solar simulator. I have picked metal-halide lamps as my light source. If the PV panel has an area of 1m^2 and I wanted to achieve spatial uniformity across the irradiated surface with an irradiance of 1000 W/m^2, how do I go about selecting what...

[FONT=Calibri]Assuming the Sun’s core has a mass of 0.35 Msolar_mass and taking values for other quantities from a internet background search or from the following figures (i.e.: Radius "solar core" = 0.25 Rsolar_radius ): ------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Scientists find the source of one of the rarest meteorites to fall on Earth https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-find-the-source-of-one-of-the-rarest-meteorites-to-fall-on-earth/ar-AA13ejQe Terrestrial modification of the Ivuna meteorite and a reassessment of the chemical...

I have a solar water heater on my deck, with a circulator powered by PV, that pumps heated glycol through a wand heat exchanger placed in an 80 gallon tank. Water comes from the well's pressure tank, passes through this solar pre-heater tank, then into an LPG heater that adds any heat needed. I...

Has any research been done to determine the effect a Carrington Event (or close) solar flare would affect solar panels?

In another thread, @Grinkle asked about a solar fridge project. In the end, he decided against it, but it set me to wondering if it could be done for people living off grid. At this point, I really miss our beloved Jim Hardy. Jim would have brainstormed with me, then he might have gone in...

I am working on a sanity check for capacity vs load and if anyone here has experience with off-grid solar, any feedback would be much appreciated. The application is to run a fridge and a modem off-grid on a piece of land in New Mexico. I read that in December (worst case month) the area gets...

Hi, I wanted to find the number of protons striking a surface area during a solar event and the units provided are: #/(cm^2 s sr). Say I have a 1 m^2 surface area directly facing the sun, how do I use those units to discover the number of protons/s. What is the value of the solid angle to...

The result I get is 2 hours and 10 minutes. My reasoning is down here. But! Checking the map for the 2024 Solar eclipse, https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2024-april-8, in many locations you can see a partial eclipse of over 2 hours 40 minutes. What is the main source of error here? Here...

I heard this while driving the other day. Progress On Perovskite Solar Cells | Earth Wise with Randy Simon https://earthwiseradio.org/podcast/progress-on-perovskite-solar-cells/ I wanted to check this out. Si melts at about 2,570°F (1,410°C). I'm not sure about 3000°F (1649°C), which...

It is widely accepted that global warming caused by accumulating greenhouse gases is happening and, as the late Isaac Asimov pointed out years ago, even if or when this is curbed, if the population remains at similar levels as now then just the waste heat from human activities will eventually be...

Hey'all. First of all, I'm not fluent in English, so forgive me for the spelling mistakes. So, I'm trying to make a simulation of a solar system using python 3.9. It's not complicated, but my teacher wants me to do it using the Basic Verlet method, and that's what is bugging me. He told me do do...

Hi, Has anyone experience with photovoltaic solar panels and thermal radiator type solar panels? 1/ How do they compare when both have the same collection area? If the thermal radiator was much smaller than the collection area, and a lens the size of the collection area was used, focused on...

1. In this system the sun boils Freon in a solar panel. 2. Freon vapor is sent to a turbine or piston motor. 3. Freon discharge from the motor is sent to condenser coils submerged underwater. 4. The cooled, low-pressure Freon is sent back to the solar panel inlet. 5. The Freon-powered motor...

I am trying to come to terms with the two concepts of gravity, direct attraction between bodies (say dust even) and attribution to the curvature of space (time) Looking at a physical sea coast I can envisage how every instance of the mass gravitational interactions of individual atoms or smaller...

What are the current limitations with solar sails and why are they not used with greater frequency? I have heard of hydrogen blistering -- is that a significant issue?

I'd like to take Solar Panel power output and use it to power an AC outlet on the ultra-cheap. I know a lot of people use Solar to connect to a purpose built inverter and also have a battery somewhere in the mix to provide a stable output but wondering if the following (using the assumptions...

Hello. I went to my local astronomy club last night and the subject of diminished solar power caused by dust came up in conversation. We looked at images of the Insight mission and these showed a significant build up of said dust. This got me thinking. Could the solar panels of future Mars...