If light comes from the Sun within the visible radiation spectrum why do we feel heat?

Question

does that mean we have a photon split?

Answer 1

In addition to visible, light from sun also extends into the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum. Infrared produces heat on contact with another surface. Note that the atmosphere is heated from below. That is to say the sun hits the earth's surface and heats it. The earth then in turn radiates back long wave radiation which heats the atmosphere. Kind of cool hey.

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Answer 2

If you put a convex lens in sun and adjust a paper at its focus you will soon see the paper catching fire! Sun is a great energy source for earth. Every sq.meter gets on an average 342 watts of energy. Total energy sent down by sun is1.7*(10)^17 watts. Compare it with a large electric plant whose output is100 million watts. That is 1.7 billion such plants will equal sun's power( roughly one for every 3 persons on earth).Most heat is received by tropics and very less by poles because the earth rotational axis is more or less perpendicular to earth's plane of rotation around sun.(there is in fact a tilt of 23.5 degrees). Besides visible light that we see there is also infrared radiation of sun(proportional to T^4). Part of this is radiated back by earth to atmosphere. Part of this heat is trapped by water vapor and carbon dioxide (known as "green house Gasses").This is in brief the basic physics of why we feel the heat of sun.

Answer 3

Not really. Visible photons also bear energy, and your skin absorbs them. This is felt as heat. The sun also emits in the infrared--the yelowish color you see is just the peak of its spectrum.

Answer 4

Who says considered and IR are literally not risky to human beings? If I thrown adequate at you there'll be a lump of carbon the region you change into once status. yet to reply for your question is going to require a splash physics. at the same time as photons are incident upon an merchandise those photons can behave in a million of three recommendations. they're in many circumstances transmitted, absorbed or meditated. subsequently the photons (contained contained in the microwave section) are absorbed. And that signifies that skill is being positioned into the gadget. once you position skill into that gadget the molecules initiate to boost their translational and rotational kinetic skill. positioned adequate skill into the gadget and also you initiate to break molecular bonds. Radio is of lots shrink skill that microwaves. truly in case you took a feather and dropped it from the precise of your shoulder it can favor to eclipse all the radio skill ever received from section for the length of present day historic past.

Answer 5

Radiant energy. In geophysics, transparent greenhouse gases trap the sun's radiant energy, allowing it to penetrate deep into the atmosphere or all the way to the Earth's surface, where they are re-emitted as longer wavelength radiation

Answer 6

i would like to add to brock's answer, though the infrared rays(which causes the heating) reaches the earth the UV rays do not reach the earth, because they are blocked by the ozone layer