RE: Science Porn
February 10, 2016 at 9:18 pm
(This post was last modified: February 10, 2016 at 9:24 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Aren't you missing something? The color temperature of the moonlight is not the same as the temperature at the surface of the moon. This is because the moon does not shine through incandescence. Instead it shines through reflection, so moon light's color temperature is that portion of the color temperature of the surface of the sun that the surface of the moon sees fit to reflect.
So the color temperature of the moon light is thousands of degrees, where as the temperature of the surface of the moon is hundreds of degrees.
It's the same as saying the color temperature of the sunlight reflected and concentrated by an array of mirrors is not the same as the temperature of the mirrors themselves.
So I absolutely don't buy the notion that you can't concentrate enough moonlight to set something on fire.
The issue seems to be more about how reflective is the surface of the thing you want to set on fire, how freely can the object re-radiate heat away from itself, and what the temperature of combustion is.
So the color temperature of the moon light is thousands of degrees, where as the temperature of the surface of the moon is hundreds of degrees.
It's the same as saying the color temperature of the sunlight reflected and concentrated by an array of mirrors is not the same as the temperature of the mirrors themselves.
So I absolutely don't buy the notion that you can't concentrate enough moonlight to set something on fire.
The issue seems to be more about how reflective is the surface of the thing you want to set on fire, how freely can the object re-radiate heat away from itself, and what the temperature of combustion is.