How does the Earth and its various spheres lose heat?
This has stumped me since high school physics. I have an elementary understanding of how my coffee cup for radiates heat. However, I’ve always imagined that the vacuum of space would insulate the planet, or anything, like an invisible Yeti cup.
So, where does the heat go, and how does it get there?
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Heat is just energy. It gets radiated off as infrared light. Everything with temperature emits light, the wavelengths of which are determined by its temperature. This is how the sun emits light, the fusion reaction in the core releases a ton of energy, that energy turns into heat, and that heat turns into light. The reason the sun is yellow is because it emits colors that add up to look yellow, almost white. See [black body radiation](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/wien.html) for more about how objects with temperature emit light. Also see the ultraviolet catastrophe for how fitting this into our models was problematic, and the birth of quantum physics.
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