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by siculars 3602 days ago
The space station is in, uh, space. I'm fairly certain a temperature gradient could be arranged.
3 comments

It's actually the complete opposite - space is not "infinitely cold" it's more like "infinitely isolating" - like the perfect giant thermos. Space suits for example have a whole layer of water tubes just to cool down the astronaught, otherwise they will pass out from their own body's temperature.
Indeed, black body radiation isn't very effective at dissipating heat!
The ISS has an 28 tons active cooling system that barely radiates away as much heat as a one ton HVAC unit on Earth (70kW).

It's hard to generate a temperature gradient when you're blasted from the unfiltered Sun on one side, and reflected IR from Earth.

And surrounded by a near vacuum.
And yet thermos has somehow made billions by assuming the opposite.