Solar Week - Ask a Question



Come here during Solar Week (next one: March 22-26, 2021) to interact. To post a question, click on your area of interest from the topics below, and then click on the "Ask New Question" button. Or EMAIL or tweet or plant in Answer Garden your question about the Sun or life as a scientist to us -- and watch for it to appear here.  You can also visit our FAQs (frequently asked questions). In between Solar Weeks in October and March, you can view all the archives here.

PrevPrev Go to previous topic
NextNext Go to next topic
Last Post 4/16/2010 10:04 AM by  Kris Sigsbee
solar cells
 1 Replies
Sort:
You are not authorized to post a reply.
Author Messages

Anonymous





Posts:


--
4/16/2010 7:37 AM

    Valarie (cc)

    How far from earth have solar cells been used on spacecraft? thank you...

    Tags: Jupiter, Juno, Solar Panels, RTGs

    Kris Sigsbee



    Basic Member


    Posts:415
    Basic Member


    --
    4/16/2010 10:04 AM

    Hi Valarie,

    The key here is not how far away from Earth a spacecraft is, but how far away from the Sun a spacecraft will have to travel. Since the intensity of sunlight falls of as the square of the distance away from the Sun, the further away a spacecraft will go from the Sun, the more difficult it is to use solar panels to provide electrical power. So far, solar panels have been used to power missions to the inner, terrestrial planets (Mercury, Earth, Venus, and Mars), as well as on missions to study the Moon and the Sun. However, past missions to the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) like the Pioneers, Voyagers, Ulysses, Galileo and Cassini missions have all needed to use Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs) to generate electrical power. The Juno mission to Jupiter, which is currently being built, will be the first mission to one of the outer planets to use solar panels instead of RTGs. Some of my co-workers here at the University of Iowa are currently finishing construction of the Radio and Plasma Waves instrument for Juno, which will be launched in August 2011 on a five-year journey to Jupiter. You can read more about Juno here: http://juno.wisc.edu/index.html

    Kris

    You are not authorized to post a reply.


    Twitter Feed

    Scientist Leaderboard

    Name # of replies
    Multiverse skin is based on Greytness by Adammer