Their analogy is just a touch backwards depending on how you’re visualizing it. It DOES touch the heat. It traveled through a huge region that was that hot. The match is an extremely hot particle and the pool is Voyager. Their point is a single molecule, even at 30,000 degrees, isn’t going to transfer much actual energy to the space craft.
The measured temperature is more of a function of directly detecting some lower temperature and cross-referencing density measurements. It’s not enough molecules to heat up the spacecraft to the same temperature, so figuring it out becomes a function of how much heat is being absorbed and radiated back out in relation to the detected density of particles. So per detected particle, it’s getting a lot of heat, but there aren’t enough particles to really heat the whole craft up much at all.
Despite what capitalists would like you to believe technology hasn’t changed all that much in 50 years. Sure there have been some novel technologies more recently like blue LEDs or CRISPR-Cas9. But the real advance since the 70s has been in miniaturization, allowing more things to be put in the same amount of space as before.
Also one point of clarification, Voyager is a space probe, not a satellite. Satellites orbit things and can be naturally occurring.
As to the sensing mechanism specifically I am not sure other than that it has to do with detecting a differential in energy, but the sensor in question is the Low Energy Charged Particle Instrument.
Technically even the Voyager probes are orbiting something. It isn’t a planet, and not even the sun anymore. It is orbiting Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
It has quite a few sensors for various particles and plasma/etc. “A single particle” isn’t as crazy as you might think. Even a human eye is chemically sensitive enough to see a single photon (though highly unlikely the brain would notice unless you’ve been living in a cave for a long while), and electronics can be made to be far more sensitive.
The ‘how’ might take a good bit of your own research because I’m running out of free time today, but for a loose example on photons (not particles), the YouTuber AlphaPhoenix built a 2,000,000,000 fps camera https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4TdHrMi6do The TLDW for how to sense individual particles is to have very good instruments to make clean signals, and then boost those small signals with good electronics. Of course NASA is going to design and build excellent electronics. Notice how AlphaPhoenix is using vaccuum tubes. A very old tech. The biggest factor that changes over time is how expensive and small electronics can be. As someone already said, the exact tech hasn’t actually changed that much. It’s mostly all the same theories, just refined and mass produced again and again.
This explains the situation better but fails to explain how it detects these temperatures without touching them.
I assume its infrared cameras and the like. But this also implies the “wall of fire” is actually full of holes or its bound to collide with that heat.
Their analogy is just a touch backwards depending on how you’re visualizing it. It DOES touch the heat. It traveled through a huge region that was that hot. The match is an extremely hot particle and the pool is Voyager. Their point is a single molecule, even at 30,000 degrees, isn’t going to transfer much actual energy to the space craft.
The measured temperature is more of a function of directly detecting some lower temperature and cross-referencing density measurements. It’s not enough molecules to heat up the spacecraft to the same temperature, so figuring it out becomes a function of how much heat is being absorbed and radiated back out in relation to the detected density of particles. So per detected particle, it’s getting a lot of heat, but there aren’t enough particles to really heat the whole craft up much at all.
But how does a satellite built 50 years ago even detect the energy of that single particle in the vacuum of space? That’s mind boggling.
Despite what capitalists would like you to believe technology hasn’t changed all that much in 50 years. Sure there have been some novel technologies more recently like blue LEDs or CRISPR-Cas9. But the real advance since the 70s has been in miniaturization, allowing more things to be put in the same amount of space as before.
Also one point of clarification, Voyager is a space probe, not a satellite. Satellites orbit things and can be naturally occurring.
Fair. I’m still curious how it detects a single atom in the vacuum of space though
As to the sensing mechanism specifically I am not sure other than that it has to do with detecting a differential in energy, but the sensor in question is the Low Energy Charged Particle Instrument.
Thanks!
Technically even the Voyager probes are orbiting something. It isn’t a planet, and not even the sun anymore. It is orbiting Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
But yeah, probe is the more accurate term.
I had a feeling somebody was going to point that out…
It has quite a few sensors for various particles and plasma/etc. “A single particle” isn’t as crazy as you might think. Even a human eye is chemically sensitive enough to see a single photon (though highly unlikely the brain would notice unless you’ve been living in a cave for a long while), and electronics can be made to be far more sensitive.
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/instruments/ Gives a decent high level on the sensors these probes have.
The ‘how’ might take a good bit of your own research because I’m running out of free time today, but for a loose example on photons (not particles), the YouTuber AlphaPhoenix built a 2,000,000,000 fps camera https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4TdHrMi6do The TLDW for how to sense individual particles is to have very good instruments to make clean signals, and then boost those small signals with good electronics. Of course NASA is going to design and build excellent electronics. Notice how AlphaPhoenix is using vaccuum tubes. A very old tech. The biggest factor that changes over time is how expensive and small electronics can be. As someone already said, the exact tech hasn’t actually changed that much. It’s mostly all the same theories, just refined and mass produced again and again.
Very cool, thanks so much!