Why 30,000 K Plasma Does Not Scorch Voyager 2
Voyager 2's metal skin makes the dangerous-looking number misleading: plasma can register about 30,000 K while supplying almost no damaging heat, because temperature measures average particle energy rather than the total energy reaching a surface. Hot by measurement. Sparse by count.The seeming paradox is mostly arithmetic. Beyond the Sun's protective bubble, plasma density is so low that particle...More
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