how does the sun's energy warm the earth?

Question

i am only in grade 7. just to let you know.

Answer 1

The sun converts millions of tons of matter into energy every second via fussion processes; this energy is radiated out in every direction in the form of photons and a slew of other particles.

When these photons reach earth, we call it "incident light". Light is easily reflected, refracted, and absorbed by many materials on earth, and at every level of interaction, energy is lost to heat.

Edit - what's with all this "pan heating an egg" stuff? What does that even mean?

Answer 2

(m)

The sun is not just a star that provides Earth with heat and light. The sun also gives us many other things we need to live. Energy is one example. The sun is the main source of energy on earth and energy produces a lot of things that we use today. Our electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels; coal, oil, and natural gas. These all come from sunlight. Our electricity comes from fossil fuels, which come from the sun because creatures that lived a long time ago needed the sun to live and when they died they were buried. Over the millions of years that passed the creatures turned into fossil fuels, which are the coal, oil, and natural gas, we use today. Even windmills and hydropower plants get their energy from the sun. Windmills move because the sun causes winds to blow. First, the sun’s rays in the form of radiation hit the surface of Earth. The warm ground heats the air above. Warm air at the equator moves north and south to the cooler regions at the poles, creating winds.

Hydropower plants generate energy because the sun causes rivers to flow. The sun causes rivers to flow because the sun creates warm air that gets trapped into some parts of the earth’s atmosphere. Then the warm air heats up the water in the river. Then the part of the river that is not warm hits the warm water and since warm water rises because it is less dense than cold water that creates a circulation that creates winds.

We also need energy to run, jump, and do many other things. This energy comes from the sun, too. The sun is the head of the food chain, because a plant needs the sun to grow. When an animal comes and eats the plant, the energy converts to the animal. Then an animal eats that animal and the energy is passed to that animal. This process keeps on going which is why we have a lot of energy today.

Answer 3

By radiation. When I say radiation I do not mean anything like radioactive or nuclear, which is something totally different.

Heat can be transferred 3 different ways, conduction, convection and radiation.
1) Conduction is where two material things are touching each other and heat from the warmer one flows into the cooler one. If you touch a hot iron, your finger heats up by conduction.
2) Convection is where a liquid or gas is in motion and warmer parts of the fluid move to other places, carrying their heat with them. For example, heating a pot of water causes the water at the bottom of the pot to warm up by conduction and the hot water then moves to other places in the pot, making room for other cold water to move to the bottom where it too gets heated by touching the hot bottom of the pot. Eventually all the water has moved by the bottom and it is all hot.
3) Radiation is where energy simply moves through empty space at the speed of light in straight lines. Light, radio waves and heat can do this. The energy "radiates" from the source. This is how you feel the heat of a hot iron when your hand is close to, but not touching it.

Answer 4

The Earth's atmosphere contains Carbon dioxide. The suns rays that enter the atmosphere are absorbed by the plants, the Earth itself, by the water bodies and mainly by carbon dioxide. It traps the heat and maintains the temperature of the planet. Greenhouse effect is a result of too much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. It traps a lot of heat thereby increasing the temperature drastically.

Answer 5

the suns energy, in the forms of light, travels from the surface of the sun in all directions. a small fraction of it reaches the earth. the energy simply travels through space. the sunlight hits earth and the energy warms and lights earth.

Answer 6

Sun's rays enter the atmosphere, but when they try to bouce off the earth and back out, some are reflected back by clouds and other components of the atmosphere.... Works like a greenhouse.

Answer 7

The same way a frying pan warms an egg only it does it upside down.

Answer 8

there are many sun rays that travel through the atmosphere to get to earth...since we have an ozone layer the rays bounce from the ground and stay in our atmospher due to this layer...the problem is, our world is getting hotter...that's not good

Answer 9

heat is fast moving molicules, the sun radiates its fast moving energy from its explosions, like if you rub your hands together fast, it heats up.

Answer 10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

And boy doesnt the sun just love earth? Damn Its Hot!

Hope I Helped!