On a hot day, leaving certain things in your car is not a good idea at all. Be it refrigerated goods, water bottles, children or pets, it is best to keep them out of the sun and the heat. They can suffer a lot or can also cause severe damage to your car. Apart from the items mentioned above, another thing was recently added to the list, thanks to a teacher at San Francisco science museum. A giant parabolic mirror; never leave a giant parabolic mirror in your car. If you don’t take care of this and let the sun hit the mirror, the results are going to be bad.
A standard flat mirror reflects the light at the same angle from where it is coming. However, a parabolic mirror reflects the sun on a single point. This feature is excellent for telescopes and satellite dishes, but it can do great harm when the mirror is present in your car. Marc Zeke Kossover learned this the hard way when he brought his parabolic mirror to the San Francisco Exploratorium for a demonstration. He uses these mirrors to demonstrate how solar ovens work. Kossover says that by using this mirror, he can purify one liter of water in 15 minutes only.
He didn’t know at that time that these mirrors can also melt the roof of his car. He said that when he was heading to his demonstration, he accidentally forgot the mirrors in the car for the afternoon. When he came back, he found that the lining of his roof was completely burnt. Luckily, that was all the damage that the car faced. The heating levels which were produced by the focused sunlight were enough to get a fire in his car. The lining loss was recovered in only $100 to replace the lining.
So, never leave a parabolic mirror in your car!