Introduction
All the surfaces of materials having temperatures above absolute zero emit thermal radiation continuously. Thermal radiation refers to all electromagnetic radiation including visible light to longer infrared rays. The amount of the thermal radiation emitted from the surface a body depends on its temperature and composition and can be calculated by the Planck’s law of blackbody radiation. A blackbody is a hypothetical ideal radiator, which absorbs all the wavelength incident upon it and also emit all the absorbed radiation to the surrounding. Even though two surfaces are at the same temperature, the amount of the thermal radiation emitted by them will not be the same; the difference is attributed to the “emissivity” of the surface.
Emissivity
The emissivity (ε) of a surface is its effectiveness in emitting energy as thermal radiation. It is defined as the ratio of the thermal radiation exiting from a surface to the radiation from a black body surface at the same temperature.
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Kusuma, K.N. (2020). Emissivity. In: Cudnik, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Lunar Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05546-6_196-1
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