I’ve heard a few times now in various scientific fields, mainly experiments, about things getting as hot as the sun.
How is this possible? Surely if you do something and you create heat that is that hot it would melt anything surrounding it?
Would love to know how this works 🙂
In: 175
The amount of radiated energy from an object depends on its surface area, you can feel the difference between a candle and a large fire.
The energy flux (energy flowing through an given area) drops with the square of the distance. If the distance doubles the energy flux is 1/4. if we compare 1cm to 1m =100cm is 100^2 =10,000. So an object of the same size will receive 10,000 times more energy if the distance is 1cm compared to 1 meter.
The sun’s diameter is 109 times the Earth’s diameter so an enormous area, which is why it emits so much energy. The distance is 150 million km =23454 earth radius. So you do not have a noticeable effect if you just move around on Earth, the energy flux it practically constant at earth’s distance from the sun.
Warmer than the sun is in general warmer then the surface of the sun that is 5,772 K, 5499C, 9929F.
If you do arch welding the center of the electrode might be 5000-6000C which is warmer than the surface of the sun. A plasma cutter can reach 14000C, and both of them will melt stuff that is the point.
The arch and plasma are not that large in surface area the radiation energy is not that larger. So it will melt stuff very close to it but when you get away the energy flux quickly drops
If you have something with the temperature like the surface of the sun that is quite large on Earth it will destroy stuff around it too. But that is not something that is common at all, the best example would be an exploding nuclear bomb. Even a small nuke like the one that exploded over Hiroshima had thermal radiation that vaporized people, you get 3rd-degree burns and a distance of 2 km
So most object as warm as the sun on earth is like a candle compared to the sun which would be more like a house fire. You need to be extremely close to the candle to get the same energy as a lot longer distance from the sun.
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