How, at 93 million miles away, does the sun feel so warm, yet when a simple cloud passes over it the warmth is incredibly dampened?
In: Planetary Science
The sun feels a lot less warm from this far away, because its radiation is spread out over a sphere with a radius of 93 million miles. It would feel much hotter if it was closer. It still feels as warm as it does because the amount of energy it radiates is just that big.
Why does a cloud have so much impact? Because you can see clouds. That means they block a significant portion of whatever light hits them. So whatever amount of warmth you’d get from the unobstructed sun, the cloud would make it a lot less.
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