How does a reflective material such as a space blanket reflect heat as well as light? Like, I knew light was reflected off of mirror like surfaces but I can’t comprehend the heat part. Can someone please, explain this to me. How do space blankets work?
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One of the key ways for a hot object to affect a cold one is by glowing at it: having light and light-like radiation fall on you makes you gain heat. In the range of temperatures we’re familiar with on earth, even very hot objects don’t glow very brightly in *visible* light, but they put off a lot of infra-red (this is basically the opposite of ultra-violet) ~~light~~ radiation.
If your body is warm, and your environment is cold, your body is busy glowing in infrared, losing heat with every photon. But if you’re wrapped in a space blanket, which is basically a crinkly mirror, a lot of those photons get bounced back, re-heating you.
You still lose heat through other mechanisms, though, mainly touching-things-that-are-colder-than-you, including air and the ground.
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