Say you could journey to the sun. At what point during the journey would you start to feel its heat and at what point would you start to burn?
2006-08-06 14:37:40 · 9 answers · asked by libraryn71 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
And when would you completely incinerate?
2006-08-06 14:44:14 · update #1
Walk outside during the daytime in the sunshine. You can feel the heat on your face, can you not?
If you stay out too long in the sun, you burn. Especially if you're somewhat melanine challenged (read fair skinned).
The radiant energy of the sun is somewhat intense. Objects in earth orbit must be shielded from direct sunlight, if temperature sensitive. With the right protection you could survive a trip quite close, but inside say the orbit of Mercury, the engineering would be pretty challenging.
The surface of the sun is only a few thousand degrees. The corona (the plasma that surrounds the sun) is tens of thousands, but not very dense.
The heat transfer would be primarily radiant, rather than conductive. So your heat shielding would have to deal with the radiant load (the square of the distance).
2006-08-06 14:47:17 · answer #1 · answered by Wicked Mickey 4 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Anything closer or further away from the Sun would be either too hot or too cold to sustain life. For some reason, with our distance from our fiery orb, and the various layers of atmosphere, we are the only planet in this solar system that can sustain life.
The solar flares wreak havoc on our communications systems. And our own inability to clean up our atmosphere is making our planet hotter. And not only the atmosphere, but our need to destroy the forests around the world, help contribute to the carbon dioxide levels, to the point that not enough CO2 is being absorbed by the plants, and converted to oxygen. This is what is known as the greenhouse effect.
2006-08-06 14:49:50 · answer #2 · answered by John B 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's already pretty toasty outside of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is like the heat shield to us. I would estimate somewhere near 500 miles away would get pretty hot, 100 or less I could be wrong, maybe you would incinerate. I hope that I helped!
2006-08-06 14:57:27 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Between Mercury and the Sun.
2006-08-06 14:42:23 · answer #4 · answered by crapex 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You feel it's heat and burn now. You would incinerate withing mercury's orbit.
2006-08-06 14:46:14 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
quite a bit farther away from the sun than the earth is. In fact if not for the atmosphere, you'd be toasty already.
2006-08-06 14:42:29 · answer #6 · answered by Lord_of_Armenia 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the heat of the sun is felt by astronauts in orbit. on the "day" side the temp reaches 250f on the "night side it is -250f
2006-08-06 14:44:21 · answer #7 · answered by biggun4570 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you were to travel to the sun at night you would be able to go all the way. Geez, gotta splain all this crap th everyone.!!!
2006-08-06 14:42:58 · answer #8 · answered by Al s 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends on the shielding of the spaceship you are in.
2006-08-06 16:53:51 · answer #9 · answered by meno25 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋