I thought half lives were a pretty hard time limit on the usage of an RTG?

Would it be best to make a probe to a neighboring star nuclear powered with retractable panals for use here and reuse there?

​Goodbye.

Like from the instant it’s built, it’s already slowly losing power

I mean yeah it’s all random chance on when a single atom will chose to decay

as far as i can tell it should.

@lolfire If you were female probably

I don't have space for manlove

But you can take that average decay rate per gram of material and extrapolate that out over several days or years and have a solid approximation on its life span

You're assuming people would touch you

Half life talk in here.

Rip my stomach

All this talk about radiation is pretty interesting and has motivated me to study for the first time in my life, thank you

@Data Pagan Most RTGs use 238Pu, which decays with a half-life of 87.7 years. RTGs using this material will therefore diminish in power output by a factor of 1−0.51/87.74, or 0.787%, per year.

Feeling insecure about it ?

What

What the fuck did I just see

Lolfire gets used for his arsehole, nothing more

But wouldn’t that mean at roughly 42-46 years, the output would be halved?

haha!

The more I read the chat the more my IQ grows

nah

<:bb:449145356123504660>

Good that you admit it

Or am I wrong

@lolfire this nigga out here fucking people at bus stops

Is the thermal output constant that entire time?

@Data Pagan One example is the RTG used by the Voyager probes. In the year 2000, 23 years after production, the radioactive material inside the RTG had decreased in power by 16.6%, i.e. providing 83.4% of its initial output; starting with a capacity of 470 W, after this length of time it would have a capacity of only 392 W. A related loss of power in the Voyager RTGs is the degrading properties of the bi-metallic thermocouples used to convert thermal energy into electrical energy; the RTGs were working at about 67% of their total original capacity instead of the expected 83.4%. By the beginning of 2001, the power generated by the Voyager RTGs had dropped to 315 W for Voyager 1 and to 319 W for Voyager 2.

Well then fuck me I guess

Well shit

I’ve got no idea what dis is about

Soviets used them in light houses placed in the artic circle

But it’s interesting

Oh fuck

Hm?

My understanding was all jacked up

@Red Pulsating Rod Play nice

It's christmas

The thermal output would remain fairly steady most of that time since it’s always decaying at the same rate

its like half-half-half-half-half or summit, its weird and random

Hey guys