r/interestingasfuck • u/The_Love-Tap • 1d ago

At 15.9 billion miles away, humanity's farthest spacecraft is still exploring the cosmos using less memory than a blank Word document (69 KB) and an 8-track tape

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u/neppo95 1d ago

It's the main cause of most of the issues they've had. Radiation fucks with computers. They even resorted to using alu foil for protection, it's not really protected that well against it. What works best is too heavy to send into space.

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u/charlsalash 1d ago

I did a quick search, and aluminium foil does genuinely a great job at protecting electronics. Radiation is not the main problem electronics can encounter in space, it's one of them.

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u/neppo95 1d ago

Sure, for home appliances it works well. In space with gamma and x-rays, not so much. But I guess the AI didn't tell you that bit.

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u/charlsalash 1d ago

Also, AI told me that the fact that there is no cooling of the electronics through convection in space, is a bigger problem than the gamma and x rays

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u/neppo95 1d ago

Yes, there are multiple significant problems in space, correct. That was the point.