
Radiative Cooling
Radiative cooling is a passive cooling technique that uses the sky as a heat sink to dissipate heat from a surface to the outer space. It works by emitting thermal radiation from a surface to the cold universe, which has a temperature of about 3 K. This technique is particularly useful in space and astronautical engineering, where there is no atmosphere to conduct heat away from spacecraft and satellites. Radiative cooling can be achieved by using materials with high infrared emissivity and low solar absorptivity, such as white paints, or by using specialized coatings that emit thermal radiation in the atmospheric transparency window. Radiative cooling has the potential to reduce the temperature of spacecraft and satellites by several degrees Celsius, which can improve their performance and extend their lifetime.
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