Timeline for How do you detect a rock in interstellar space?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 13, 2017 at 14:54 | comment | added | Justin Thyme | Even in interstellar space, the stars provide lots of background noise when it comes to black box radiation and everything else. This rock has been in space for billions of years. It has cooled down to pretty much background temperature. Since the rock is on the axis of travel, there would be no fluctuation of the background due to movement. I thought about the masking effect of the rock on background noise - detecting what is NOT there. | |
| Oct 13, 2017 at 14:54 | comment | added | Mołot | @jk it will be similar. Rock will cool by raising and be heated by background radiation. If it is cooler than 4K, it will be heated faster than it cools. If it is hotter, it will cool faster than it heats. Equilibrium will be at the temperature of radiation. | |
| Oct 13, 2017 at 12:35 | comment | added | jk. | minimal heat is fine as long as there is sufficient difference to the temperature of your background, in this case you background is space at ~4K but I have no idea what temperature interstellar rock is likely to be at, it could be similar | |
| Oct 13, 2017 at 7:23 | history | answered | MichaelK | CC BY-SA 3.0 |