> if you insulate the radiator perfectly.
I don't quite understand what that means. If your radiator is supposed to radiate away the surrounding heat, shouldn't it on the contrary be connected as much as possible to the environment?
I don't quite understand what that means. If your radiator is supposed to radiate away the surrounding heat, shouldn't it on the contrary be connected as much as possible to the environment?
what they're doing here is shifting the transmission characteristics of radiation to be within the infrared window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_window) so that it's kind of like surrounding air (and water vapor, most importantly) aren't present at all and you're radiating in to the giant cold heatsink that is space.
Conduction, convection and radiation.