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General Discussion & Feedback => Radio Show & Podcast Feedback => Topic started by: Slava Vitsev on 02/11/2011 23:01:02

Title: Using moonlight to start fires...
Post by: Slava Vitsev on 02/11/2011 23:01:02
Slava Vitsev  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
I think your site is the best among the scientific and errors are very rare. But I think that in a podcast on October 23, 2011 there is an error in the answer to the question: Can we use moonlight to start a fire?

Moonlight is not a black-body radiation. It is the light of the sun reaches us reflected from the moon likely as from a mirror.  Visible light has a frequency range with an energy of about 0.5 eV, which is equal to a temperature of about 5000 degrees. Therefore a large telescope would be able to burn the paper.

Kind regards,

Slava Vitsev

What do you think?