Solar Definition and 1000 Threads

I'm trying to get a basic understanding of Earth's origins in order to teach an advanced oceanography course to high school students this summer. The course starts with one lecture on the origins of the universe, solar system, the earth, and the ocean. I'm trying to understand, why did...

Hi everyone--first post, thanks for any guidance if I've posted in the wrong place. I've got a simple idea and I'm curious if it's worthwhile doing. How effective would putting a dark surface (perhaps black tiles, or black corrugated plastic) on the bottom of the pool, to warm the water by...

Solar Flare Must Watch! guys and gals if you haven't seen this video of solar flare yet, then hold onto your seats! make sure you view it in full screen mode :smile:http://www.space.com/19873-blazing-arc-rains-fire-on-sun-magnetic-solar-flare-loop-video.html I have seen many flare videos over...

Recently, Facebook suggested solar powered drones could be used to provide internet coverage in remote areas and they would basically act as low altitude 'geostationary' satellites. The current duration record for a solar drone is 2 weeks using energy stored in batteries during the day, to keep...

I have a general question about tandem solar cells. So tandem solar cells are solar cells with multiple p-n junctions in them. However, why can't we have a single junction solar cell with multiple wavelength absorbers in them? That is to say, why do tandem solar cells need to be split...

When I linked to this morning's spaceweather.com, I read the following, which appears to be a notable disturbance of Earth's magnetic field simultaneous to a strong flare on the sun. Normally it's said to take hours or days for the effects of a flare to be felt on Earth, but in this case there...

Hello everyone ! can you please tell me how this whole circuit is working ? specially these ones, 1.whats happening at LM317's pins(in adjust and out) ? 2. what's the purpose of zener here? 3. purpose of transistor nd how is it working ? last question! how much time it will take to...

Not sure if this is the right section for this, I apologize in advance. I have a project to do and my goal is to measure the efficiency of a solar cell INDIRECTLY. I am not sure how to do that. The equation for the efficiency of a solar cell is η = P/E*A. Where P is the cells...

Apologies for a long preamble. There is a simple question at the end of this post. Wikipedia and the PF archive were not forthcoming on this subject. Saturn's rings seem sharply bounded in the vertical dimension. If I got it right, the initial orbits of debris were centered on the orbits of...

Homework Statement Calculating solar of the sun through observing sunspots. We are given a series of photos of the sun over a period of time where we can see sun spots. I am assuming the way to calculate would be to work out the longitudinal angles of the sun spots in the different photos and...

Hey Guys, I have no background or experience in electrical engineering. I have not been able to find any information regarding the wiring application I am trying to achieve. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Is it possible to do the following; I want to run a 6 inch LED strip that is...

Homework Statement At what rate does the solar wind carry kinetic energy away from the sun? Give your result first in watts, then as a fraction of the Sun's luminosity in photons, L=3.8*10^26 W Homework Equations KE=(1/2)mv^2 mass loss of sun- Msunloss=4πr2vρ The Attempt at a...

Homework Statement Let's suppose that we wanted to launch a spacecraft of mass m out of the Solar System. a) If we want to launch the spacecraft directly from Earth, what boost Δv would be required and what direction relative to the Earth's velocity about the Sun would this boost be...

How can I calculate the total diffused and incident light of the sun?Edit I am doing this project with solar panels. I thought, watching as well several youtube videos, that I could improve the panels with mirrors, and looking at some plants, I realized that some of their leaves bended towards...

Why not Solar --> Electrolysis --> Burn to make steam energy? Solar heat and light are both available in abundance, especially in the tropics. That being so, why is that no attempts have been made to use Solar-Electricity to split water in large amounts, into H2 and O2 to boil water to produce...

is there any procedure ( formulae ) to select the power rating of solar panels and ampere hour rating of batteries ?

I'm working on a project where I charge a 12 volt battery with a 12 volt solar panel. Links for the battery and solar panels are below. My question is how I should connect the two. The main thing I can find is that I don't want the solar panel draining the battery. I plan to put a diode from the...

okay so here are the lengths of years and days on the planets: Mercury: Day: 176 Earth days Year: 88 1 year on mercury is daytime and the other is nightime Venus: Day: 243 Earth days Year: 224.7 Earth days Earth: day: 1 Earth day Year: 365 Earth days Mars: Day: 1.03 Earth...

I have undertaken a course on Semiconductors. My professor told us that a sun-solar cell system can be taken as a Carnot Engine. He assumed that the surface temperature of sun is 6000k and that of solar cell is 300k.And then he found out the efficiency by (1-T1/T2), which came out close to be...

I saw a previous thread on this forum that asked about the practical usage of a one way sphere ball and after reading through it I've come to terms with an idea that uses such an object in a very efficient manor. If you take your one way mirror sphere and wire solar panels on the interior of...

Hello, My company operates a 1.6MW solar power system in a net metering configuration in CA. Of course the inverter shuts the system down if the grid goes down. My question is can I somehow "island" the system using a transfer switch so I can continue to generate power if the grid goes down...

In the i,Robot book -by Issac Asimov- one of the stories mention some sort of satellite for gathering solar energy. Basically this satellite will be stationary outside of our orbit, and it will gather solar energy and intensify it into a beam that is transmitted into a base on earth. I...

At first, i would have questions about Io. How should i imagine the electric flux between it and Jupiter? Does it make a series of lightnings, aurora borealis, jam nearby radio communications? In an Asimov book they needed some magitech to reach Io, is it really so deep in the gravity well...

I am looking to add another school to my list of grad school applications that is active in Solar physics. Gradschoolshopper has only revealed a total of 6 schools in this field, only 2 of which I know actually have established groups in the field (Montana (already applied) and Stanford). Can be...

Hi, apparently you can calculate the amount of energy the sun delivers to each square meter of the Earth using an umbrella, tin can, water and a thermometer. You put the tin can outside with some water in it and put the umbrella over it until it reaches ambient temperature. You then take the...

I have an 800 amp car battery no load connected at anytime to a 10 watt solar panel with just a regular diode in between after 4 or 5 hours in the sun terminal voltage reads 16 volts is this good? Would a battery connected this way last longer than one that sits idle uncharged for 6 months? John

Hello, everyone. On physics Olympiad in our country I get a interesting example... But, I didn't know how to solve it. Can you tell me how? It is known that the Moon when it is full has the apparent magnitude of approximately -12 mag and the Sun during the day has the apparent magnitude of...

I saw this article and wanted to see anyone is interested in discussing what percentage of power will be lost in transmission/transformation in a situation like this:Solar Plant in Space Gets Go-Aheadhttp://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/solar-plant-in-space-gets-go-ahead/?_r=1...

Ok I know our moon is getting farther away due to gravity (tidal force indirect), basically giving it kinetic energy and exchanging that for orbital energy. If the moon was in retrograde orbit, i.e. Triton around Neptune, it would work the opposite way and pull the moon closer to the...

Homework Statement using a climate sensitivity of 0.5K per watt per square meter, estimate how much of the .9 c global temperature increase since 1900 could be due to solar forcing who value is the range of .06 to .24 w/m2 Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution .5 x .06 =...

Homework Statement I am constructing an N-body simulation in Java that will ultimately model the solar system. I am testing the reliability of it by slowly increasing the number of bodies in the simulation. So I am starting off with the Sun, Mercury and Venus. I am looking to find the...

Dose anyone know that what is the newest generation of solar cells?

Homework Statement I am creating an astrophysical simulation involving an arbritary number of particles and each particle is identified via a mass, label, position vector and velocity vector. I have made classes which can perform operations on these vectors and I also have a class which...

Coronal heating by "solar braiding" How the Sun's Corona Gets So Hot The phenomenon of "solar braiding," hypothesized 30 years ago, has now been validated by images from an orbital telescope. http://discovermagazine.com/2013/september/06-understanding-suns-energy NASA Telescope Observes...

As far as I know, when the light is shining on the solar cell (PN junction), current would be stopped if voltage reaches to Voc (open-circuit voltage). Is Voc equal to the difference between fermi level of n-type and p-type parts?

I was reading up on net metering, where the electric utility allows one to feed back excess generation by solar panels etc. onto the distribution network. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_metering One question I had is, is it fairly easy to match phase for such inverters with the grid...

Greetings PFers I’m thinking about building a Tiny House similar to the one below, except outfitted with solar power. http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/products/weebee/#ad-image-0 A Tiny house is a small (~120 sqft) home on a trailer bed. I’m interested in designing one that is equipped with a...

Ok, so I've been passionately researching my latest novel idea as it takes place in an extremely far fetched future with long range interstellar travel and all that and the brink of controlled time modulation etc... While doing this, I've been able to name every site, system, planet of...

A solar panel have a certain voltage at which it produces the most power. Below this voltage it's a current source - giving about the same current all the way down to short circuit. Right? On the other hand, a capacitor sucks up as much current as is available (ignoring ESR), slowly...

Hello. Here is my executive summary. Anyhave have recommendations for the titles. Originally it is "Space Based Solar Power: A System Review". It's short, snappy, but it doesn't quite portray my thesis and I am specifically looking at one type of SBSP system. But it is unconventional, so...

I just got my hands on a solar battery charger with a set of usage specifications that makes me believe it will only be useful some four days a month and will take more or less such time to charge a single set of batteries, despite promises on the contrary in the instructions. Since the case is...

Solar winds contain plasma, which are charged particles and carry Sun's magnetic field orientation, when those solar wind hits toward Earth, does anyone have any suggestions on how those plasma affects on Earth's magnetic field? and how this energy converts into different forms on Earth? Does...

Compound A has an albedo value (visible spectrum) of 0.08, and an emissivity (infrared) of 0.08. Compound B has an albedo value of 0.04 and an emissivity of 0.88, in the same spectrums. We need to explain why A is more effective at transferring energy to the water flowing behind it, when...

I don't know if this is the right forum but I'm curious. Companies are searching for alternatives like copper and zinc to make photovoltaic solar cells out of. Could aluminum ever work and be feasible, and replace current rare Earth components?

Given: a ~3W monocrystalline solar panel, originally from a panel+battery+light pack from early 90s, spent a decade in a box, then a decade on the roof under the sun and elements, unconnected to anything. I wanted to finally put it to some use. The circuit is straightforward - the panel...

Does anyone have access to the current data about solar radiation reaching Earth's surface ? The most importaint is the UV range divided into UV-A, UV-B and UV-C. If not, then data from the past few years would also be fine. I need it for research but I cannot find anywhere such information.

Hello, We are a solar energy solutions provider and we are looking to explore CSP plants at smaller scales. I would like to understand the design better. Basically a CSP consists of: 1) steam turbine 2) solar energy collectors (mirrors) 3) water container (boiler) I would like to...

Hi, I'm working on a project to build a solar powered AA battery charger. This is definitely not my profession, I only have a small understanding of electrical engineering. Mostly from what I learned in high school electrical class. Here is what I'm looking to do: I want to charge 16 AA...

Hi, This is my first post here, so if I make mistakes please be gentle with me. I have a 'problem' with a solar system I'm developing for a series of stories I'm writing. Those stories have nothing to do with Earth, and are set in a system unlike our own. To introduce the system, the...

Here's the Cassini image from Saturn. Suppose I map an x-y coordinate system on that picture with the Earth (that pale blue dot down there) at the origin. Without looking at anything else, can you place points at the perimeter of the square picture, giving the angle pointing to where the sun...