Does sunlight have any weight to it?

Answer 1

Technically, no since a photon is a massless quanta of light or electromagnetic radiation. However, the whole wave-particle duality must come into play. Energy from the Sun can impart a force upon objects--hence the whole solar sail project.
Another reason a photon cannot have any mass is because only a massless object can move at the speed of light. Now, if you're wondering how can light rays be "bent" by gravity if gravity only affects mass, the light rays simply travel straight lines, unaffected by gravity. However, since gravity warps or curves space, sometimes those straight lines get bent.

Answer 2

Does Sunlight Have Mass

Answer 3

Sunlight, composed of photons reaching the earth, has no weight. It has
energy, but from the equation E=mc2, an equivalent mass to this energy can
be found. This, however, does not mean that the mass of the earth increases.

To roughly estimate the incident solar power (energy per second), the
average radiation flux incident on the earth surface of about 1000
Watts/m2 is multiplied by one half of the area of the earth (5 E14 m2) to
yield 2.5E17 Watts. From E=mC2, the mass equivalent to this energy is
about 2.8 kg/seconds.

Ali Khounsary, Ph.D.
Argonne National Laboratory

Answer 4

Light doesn't have any "rest mass"--the mass when it's standing still. But since light is always moving at, well, the speed of light, it does have mass or the equivalent from its energy. E = mc^2, remember? I actually read that if you put a balance scale so that one end was in sunlight and the other in shadow, the lighted side would drop.

Answer 5

No. Or rather, it has no mass. Sunlight, like all electromagnetric radiation, is carried by partlicles called photons, and they have no mass.

Weight is the result of gravity acting on a mass so as there is no mass, sunlight cannot have any weight either

Answer 6

Acc to Einstein's mass energy relation E=mc^2, Energy and mass are interconvertible, which implies that Sunlight is a form of energy which might have converted from its previous mass state.The converse is also true and hence you can convert sunlight energy into mass. But Sunlight itself doesnot have any mass but can be converted into mass as per Einstein's equation.

Answer 7

Sunlight, as in photons, do not have actual mass, but they have something similar called momentum which allows them to exert forces on certain things in a way similar to if they did have mass.

Answer 8

no, since light rays are mass less, sunlight obviously does not carry any mass. Light is made up of tiny packets of energy called photons. this is what we refer to as light rays- prior to Einstein(I think...) it was thought that light was made up of waves, just like other electromagnetic radiation (e.i. radio waves, microwaves, infrared) But this is now incorrect. Since light is energy, it does not have any mass, because they are 2 different things. however, Einstein showed they relation between the 2 in his famous E=MC^2 where mass is converted to energy and vice versa. C is the speed of light in a vacuum. Since light is extremely fast, even a tiny mass converted to energy, releases HUGE amounts. (Atomic bomb)

Answer 9

-Everything on the radio magnetic spectrum has no mass. This includes radio waves, infra-red, visible light, ultra violet, micro waves, x-rays, and cosmic and gama radiation.

Answer 10

light has a dual wave/particle properties. in some experiments light behaves such that it seems to have a slight mass.