How/why is space between the sun and the earth so cold, when we can feel heat coming from the sun?
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So, the reason you might think the space between the Earth and Sun is cold is because it’s so very empty. For you to feel hot or cold, usually, it’s all the little stuff around you, mostly air molecules, bumping into you and either giving you energy (warmth) or taking some energy away (cold.) So, when there’s absolutely nothing around, there’s nothing bumping into you to help insulate you (creating a buffer so that you don’t heat up really fast or lose too much energy too fast.) So you’re only losing heat through the same process by which the heat of the Sun travels, via radiation. If you were to be facing the sun in space, the front of you would start to get very, very warm very quickly, as all of that radiation is now being blasted directly onto you (you’ll need some really high SPF for this haha.) At the same time, your back would being to feel very, very cold, as you’ll be radiating your own energy with nothing returning it. So, in actuality, the space between the Sun and Earth isn’t hot nor cold, it’s just full of radiation. Until you introduce something that can absorb that radiation, then you can see the temperature gradient that forms on the matter that you’ve introduced due to the amount of radiation received (the front receiving the most, the back receiving almost none, and the sides receiving a little. This is the reason we have our seasons btw, more direct and less direct radiation due to the tilt in our axis. As you may have heard before, we’re actually farthest away from the Sun in our orbit during spring in the Norther Hemisphere.)
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