What material do you use on a satellite like SOHO that allows remote sensing and is strong enough to protect the instruments inside from the melting SUN?
Hi, Chad, You might think that the Sun is pretty hot where SOHO is — but it’s not much hotter than here on Earth! SOHO is only 1% of the way to the Sun from where we are, so the sunlight is about 2% hotter. That’s not much hotter than right here. So it’s not a big deal to shield the instruments from being *melted*. But we do have to use the same sorts of special filters to protect the cameras that you would have to use here on Earth. (You wouldn’t want to aim your camera straight at the Sun, because the lens concentrates the light and could burn the film!) One kind of solar filter is a piece of glass with a very very thin layer (less than 1/100 the thickness of a human hair) of silver or aluminum on it. The metal reflects most of the light of the Sun but lets a little bit through so that the camera can work.
