Thermal Dissonance: Difference between revisions

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* The coasts of Northern [[California]] may ''look'' sunny and bright as early in the year as February. However, the horrific wind chill often forces everyone to keep wearing thick coats.

* A thermal tile from the Space Shuttle can be glowing ''yellow-to-white-hot'' on the inside, but you can still pick it up with your bare hands because it has extremely poor thermal conductivity.

** This is also why a meteorite that makes it to the ground is still more or less in one piece, rather than splashed. Iron-nickel alloys are the second worst (after titan and its alloys) heat conductors among metals. While entering Earth's atmosphere does expose it to quite a bit of heat, its surface will melt and be blown away before ~~it transfers~~ much heat to the ~~lower~~ layers. Also, it comes in fast, so if it arrived from the night side, it probably came from outer parts of the system and is still cold, as it wasn't close enough to Sun for long enough to warm up. The impact eats the rest of kinetic energy and can easily produce enough of heat to melt sand into glass, but it's all on surface, too, and may dissipate out faster than in.

** This is also why a meteorite that makes it to the ground is still more or less in one piece, rather than splashed. Iron-nickel alloys are the second worst (after titan and its alloys) heat conductors among metals. While entering Earth's atmosphere does expose it to quite a bit of heat, its surface will melt and be blown away before much heat is transferred to the inner layers. Also, it comes in fast, so if it arrived from the night side, it probably came from outer parts of the system and is still cold, as it wasn't close enough to Sun for long enough to warm up. The impact eats the rest of kinetic energy and can easily produce enough of heat to melt sand into glass, but it's all on surface, too, and may dissipate out faster than in.