Reply to post:

Curiosity find Mars' icecaps suck up its atmosphere

David L Webb

Neither we nor our electro-mechanical devices are going to very cold [or hot or hot/cold] places at any time soon.>

I suppose that depends upon what you mean by very cold or hot - our electro-mechanical devices can survive a lot.

From http://www.astrome.co/blogs/how-do-satellites-survive-hot-and-cold-orbit-environments/

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However, the typical range of temperatures was found to be from -170 ˚C to 123 ˚C for LEO satellites while -250 ˚C to 300 ˚C could be experienced in other orbits.

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and of course landers have survived on the surface of Venus at 467C for upto 110 minutes.

http://www.space.com/18526-venus-temperature.html

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/44-Has-a-spacecraft-ever-landed-on-Venus-

There is even a planned mission to probe the outer corona of the Sun currently scheduled for launch in 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Probe_Plus

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It will approach to within 8.5 solar radii (0.034 astronomical units or 5.9 million kilometers or 3.67 million miles, roughly 1/8 of the perihelion of Mercury) to the 'surface' (photosphere) of the Sun.

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