eli5: Why isn’t outer space hot (or at least not freezing)?

Question

The sun warms up our planet but space is cold. If I lit a candle and stood 20 feet away, I could see the light but not feel the warmth. So, why do we feel warmth from the sun but space isn’t warmed by it?

In: 512

Answer 1

simply put there is nothing to be hot or cold. heat is really just the movement of atoms in an object. the faster they move, the hotter the thing is. space, while not a perfect vacuum, is for all intents and purposes empty, so there are no atoms to be hot or cold

edit: i guess, since cold is just the absence of heat, space is cold because there is no hot