solar energy projects california

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I need help on a science fair project about physics and astronomy.?

I’m in the 10th grade but I’m a bit more advanced for my age. I understand quantum physics and I love it. Last year I won first place throughout my entire school, in the AESA, and was a finalist for LA county fair and I also got an award from the Engineers in California.
So I need opinions from people who are actually in the field because I need and understand advanced concepts. I’m looking for a project that has to do with physics and/or astronomy. I would really appreciate it if someone gave me a few ideas.
And also I was wondering if there is a way to differ solar energy from other energy that we receive from other planets or stars. I know that Jupiter gives off alot of energy and I was wondering if the “solar energy” that we harness is 100% solar energy or if it also comes from other objects in space. I researched and couldn’t find anything. So just wondering if there is a way we can differ or separate energy from other objects from that of solar energy.
Thank you so much! :]

The Sun is something like magnitude -26. Venus gets to be about magnitude -4. So the Sun is 22 magnitudes brighter. The magnitude scale is logarithmic. And 5 magnitudes is a factor of 100. So one magnitude is 100^(1/5) = 2.511886432 (not exact). so 2.511886432^22 = 630,957,344 – which is how much brighter the Sun is than Venus. Venus isn’t very significant in it’s power delivered to the Earth.

Let’s try the Moon. It shines at magnitude -12 when full. So 26 – 12 = 14. The Sun is 14 magnitudes brighter than the Moon. So the Sun is only 398,107 times brighter. So even the Moon isn’t remotely like a percent. And you’d need a 5% or 10% effect to be meaningful, else it’d be obscured by passing clouds and lost as noise in the data.

What is meaningful is that solar cells are only responsive to fairly narrow ranges of frequencies of light. So if you can put together solar cells with multiple layers, with the lower frequency (longer wavelength) layers lower (so that the upper layers are basically transparent to those frequencies), then you can double, or more the efficiency of the cells. But perhaps just using the whole light spectrum, focused to heat some fluid is more efficient. Use the fluid to run a turbine. Paint the pipes a black that is black across the spectrum.

Well, that’s some of the current thinking.

Careful working with the Sun and mirrors, or the Sun and anything. Blindness can be prevented, but not, currently, cured.

Fresh water is an issue that plagues people all over the Earth. But sailors can fill up a plastic solar still, and get 12 gallons a day. It’s a place to start. Water is expensive in California. But if you want to grow crops in the Sun, you need water. The Pacific isn’t going to run dry anytime soon, so if there was a cheap way to pull fresh water from salt, it’d be a welcome change. I figure that largish trays might work, using extra salt water to cool condensers to turn the steam into collected fresh water.

But if these don’t catch the imagination, then study variable stars. Get out and do some observations. Do some interesting analysis of eclipsing binaries or cataclysmic variables. Watch meteors every night and discover a new radiant. My astronomy club owns tracking telescopes (yes, plural), CCD cameras and even a diffraction grating. So instead of spending thousands of dollars, you might do spectroscopy with a club. It’s a big universe, there must be hundreds of things to do, if you can find the resources. Hook up with a University astronomy professor for a bigger list. Every answer spawns a question. Sometimes a dozen questions. And, many of the questions are, “How could we do this cheaper?”. It’s a serious question, because much of this stuff is incredibly expensive. But maybe all you need to do is comb the SDSS data with the right query and discover something profound.

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