If the Sun is able to keep Earth warm while being millions of miles away, shouldn’t it get warmer and warmer the closer you get to it (like when you go to space)? Like how it would get warmer if you were to approach a burning house for example?
In: Planetary Science
There are three ways for thermal energy to move. Convection, induction, radiation. Convection comes from hot air rising and moving across the room, induction comes from a hot thing touching something cooler. However both of these require some medium to work.
Space is empty, so there must be radiation heating.
Anything that has a temperature releases light, animals produce light with wavelength of 12000nm. We can only see from 700 to 380 nm. So we don’t see humans glowing.
As you heat something up, the wavelength produced decreases, and eventually it will be in the 700-380nm range and we see it glow. First red, then yellow, then white.
The sun is very hot, so it produces a lot of thermal light, this travels through space and hits the earth, releasing the energy. Light doesn’t need a medium to travel through
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