If getting closer to the sun means it’s gets hotter, would there be a point in space where temperatures would be earthlike?
In: Planetary Science
“kind of”
Temperature is a property of matter.. If there is vacuum there, then you can’t have temperature, because there is nothing there to be vibrating.
But there is a band where the temperatures of matter there would be in the earth like range. This is called the “Goldilocks zone”, because it’s not too hot, and not too cold.
There are goldilocks zones for planets (which is where we look to find potential life sources), but a lesser known, and much narrower one for matter as well. A rock orbiting the sun there would eventually normalize to earth like temperatures, because the radiation being absorbed from the sun and the dissipation of heat through radiation would equalize to the temperature band you’re talking about..
there is no atmosphere in space so it’s all light including infrared to lose or gain heat. white
clothes on dark side, black facing sun and you will be roon temp much farther than earth. need probably light Grey facing sun at earth distance.
white clothing even -100 celcius (if your body wasn’t making heat) won’t feel that cold because only radiating heat away slowly. you potentially could start sweating depending on physical activity.
similar principle to high quality vacuum flask where coffee stays hot for a day.
i am assuming you are dressed in elastic tight fitting sized just for you clothes to mimic air pressure with a breathing helmet. the thicker/more insulation the clothes/space suit the warmer you feel just like wearing a winter coat. atmosphere you breathe is kept warm by your body heat
It’s probably further away than Earth towards Mars, since the Earth’s atmosphere actually blocks a lot of the radiation that would cook us to death pretty quickly.
As everyone else said, yes but also no, due to how dissipating heat in space works, but, theoretically if you’re willing to go back in time some billions of years there was a time during the inflationary period of the universe where the cosmic microwave background made the entire universe the same goldilocks temperature of Earth, no matter where you were.
It’s easier to think about temperature as air pressure in these situations. There is no air pressure in space, therefore no temperature.
It’s like sound, it needs a medium to have an effect on you. That medium is air molecules.
It gets complicated when you start thinking about radioactive energy but for these purposes just remember that no air means no temperature. There’s a point where the suns radiation would start heating your body.
the orbit of earth itself is pretty eccentric (not a perfect circle). The distance between our planet and the sun varies by quite a large margin throughout the year, and yet the temperature variance in any given place isn’t all that huge. What actually causes earth to be at the temperature range that it is is that the planet rotates on its own axis, along with having our atmosphere. It heats up while facing the sun (day) and cools down when it’s not (night). This is also why summer and winter seasons are swapped between the hemispheres. That detail dictates whether the day is longer than the night during a time of year and thus if that side of the planet spends more time facing towards or away from the sun on a given day.
even on earth some parts are not inhabitable for humans easily. like the poles for example. you need to be in a very narrow region close to the equator to survive, as least you are a human, since you are made by nature or god to survive in these conditions.
There is a so-called “goldilocks zone,” which is the range of distances from a star that is more favorable to life. Too close is too hot, and too far away is too cold. But, it’s only one of many factors in the habitability of a planet.
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