How do you dress on a hot day? Knowing that Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the Sun than any previous ESA mission, it might seem odd that a spacecraft needing to endure an unprecedented level of sunlight ends up almost entirely black in colour. The reason why comes down to practicalities of thermal design, a coating treatment devised for the very different environment of the human body and a pigment whose history stretches all the way back to the Stone Age.
Click here for original story, Paint it black: Stone Age sunscreen for Solar Orbiter
Source: ESA Space Engineering & Technology