How Does the Temperature of a Body in Space Change Over Time?

AI Thread Summary
The discussion focuses on calculating the temperature of a body in space exposed to sunlight over time, utilizing the Stefan-Boltzmann law and integrating a differential equation. The user attempts to derive a temperature function but encounters difficulties with the integration, particularly with the resulting equations involving arctangent and hyperbolic functions. There is confusion about the heat transfer rate, with some participants questioning the use of T^4 in the context of blackbody radiation. Suggestions include evaluating the integral numerically and addressing issues with imaginary values in the calculations. The conversation highlights the complexity of the problem and the need for further mathematical exploration to find a viable solution.
sid_galt
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I want to determine the temperature of a body in space exposed to the Sun as it varies with time.
I tried this.
Let A be the area exposed to the Sun and 2A the total area of the body. Let 1380 W/m2 be the power of the sunlight falling on the body. Let \sigma be the Boltzmann constant, \epsilon the emissivity of the body and T the temperature at a a particular instant of time, m the mass of the body and C the specific heat constant. Then
<br /> \displaystyle\frac{dT}{dt} = \displaystyle\frac{1380A - 2\sigma\epsilon A T^4}{mC}
<br /> \displaystyle\frac{mC}{A}\int\displaystyle\frac{1}{1380 - 2\sigma\epsilon T^4}dT = \int dt<br />
I tried to integrate it on integrals.wolfram.com taking Boltzmann constant as 5.6E-8 and emissivity as 0.7. The result was
\displaystyle\frac{0.156942mC}{A}(\arctan[0.00230862T]+arctanh[0.00230862T]) + C&#039; = t

C' is here the integration constant

I don't know how to proceed further. Can anyone help please?
Thank you
 
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Can anyone help please?
 
Are you sure it's T^4? My thermodynamics knowledge is limited but I thought the rate of heat transmition was proportional to deltaT, I might be wrong though. Otherwise, there is no analytic solution to the lower equation for T.
Edit - nevermind, it's blackbody radiation. Yeah, sorry, can't figure out what's wrong with either your physics or math. The last equation is not solvable for T.
 
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But there must be someway to find temperature as a function of time for a body in space exposed to the Sun.
 
sid_galt said:
But there must be someway to find temperature as a function of time for a body in space exposed to the Sun.

Yes, there is. You can evaluate your integral numerically.
 
But how do I integrate high temperatures into the equation, say if I want to evaluate it for a body with an initial temperature of 1000 K.
My Arctanh would give an unreal value for all temperatures higher than 434.78 K.
 
if you notice that ArcTan[x]+ArcTanh[x] for x > 1 always give some value a - 1.5708i , well , make it so your integration constant takes out the imaginary part.
Edit- more specifically
for x>1
ArcTanh[x] = ArcTanh[1/x] -1/2pi*i

Edit: Another approximation:
for small x
ArcTanh[x] = ArcTan[x]

another nice identity:
(you might be able to solve for this actually)
tan^{-1}(x) +tan^{-1}(y) = tan^{-1}(\frac{x+y}{1-xy})

Last edit - I tried all the above, it doesn't work (not even with shoddy approximations).
 
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µ³ said:
if you notice that ArcTan[x]+ArcTanh[x] for x > 1 always give some value a - 1.5708i , well , make it so your integration constant takes out the imaginary part.

I didn't notice that before. Thanks for the help.
 
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