How does the Sun heat Earth but the space in between Earth and the Sun is cold?

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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?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

All stuff is made up of particles. This includes the air/gas in our atmosphere, as well as the more tangible physical stuff. These particles move around at various speeds based on a number of factors, with one important factor being temperature. Faster particles means more heat.

Heat is a form of energy. The sun’s heat is transferred by radiation, meaning it kinda flows out from the sun and hits whatever is in its reach. As the heat energy flows out from the sun and hits stuff, that heat energy transfers to the staff’s particles. Those particles get more energy, move faster, and heat up.

Space is pretty close to absolute 0 degrees (which would be -273°C). It would take quite a lot of energy to heat you up from there to about 15°C which is a fair average temperature for current purposes — an increase of 288°C. This would require quite a lot of energy going into your body. However, since you are tiny (compared to a planet) there are very few particles (compared to a planet) which can speed up and heat up.

Space is also a vacuum, meaning there is no stuff — not even air. This means there are no particles to to speed up and no stuff to get hot. To make a small object like you heat up in space would take a lot more heat energy than what your body can pick up just from the sun. This is why all the gaps and small things in space stay cold, and why only the bigger objects like planets get warmed by the sun.

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