the sun is 93 million miles away. How can it hurt us from such a distance?

Question

this is about sunburn

Answer 1

Radiation

93 Million Miles (1 AU) is just a short distance, on the scale of space distances, but you don't have to worry about the sun going nova; it's too small for that.

However, the sun is a violent place full of energy that is spewing out into the solar system. The earth's atmosphere and magnetic field shield us from a lot of this radiation, but not always. The Solar Wind is not just light, but all sorts or radiation and charged particles and when the sun has a solar storm the solar wind grows more dangerous.

The problem is that while lead makes great radioactive shielding there isn't much of it between us and the sun, and the Earth is a very large target to hit. Compared to the sun we are a tiny speck, but then there are solar storms strong enough to swallow the earth; when one such storm builds up it casts a huge flow of radiation off into space; heading our way. The Aurora Borealis is an example of what happens when all this radiation hits the earth. These huge storms or light shower the far northern skies with bright displays of color. Little do we know the sheer power inside of those storms that happen high in the atmosphere.

Occasionally, those solar storms are strong enough to send radiation to the earth. When that happens the mild ones wreck havoc on our communications. If satellites are in the way they can get their circuits fried; so solar weather is very important to us.

The greatest electrical black out was caused by a violent solar storm. The electrical radiation reached earth bound wires and electrical lines and caused a power surge in them. As this power surge traveled to the transformer stations they begin to erupt in sparks and flame, overloaded to death. A few failed, and this set up a cascade failure. As more stations failed there was more demand on other stations, they couldn't take the load so they failed, increasing the load on the remaining stations even more. Circuit breakers popped to save a lot of the transformers, but for some it was too late. From Boston to Canada the lights went out. It took hours to restore all the electricity to that area. We have observed this kind of force from one other source; nuclear weapons. It’s called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An EMP weapon has been designed and if fired you won’t feel a thing, however the sensitive electrical components in your car will have fried and died. Your digital watch, your cell phone, your I-Pod and any other electrical device would have also died. Its circuits fried and fused into permanent failure.

The sun can send an EMP field like that at us, at any time, from a solar storm, but even without solar storms the sun is still too strong for an unshielded earth. When the solar radiation hits the highest part of the atmosphere it starts to react with the oxygen molecules present, creating ozone. Ozone is a thicker molecule than normal oxygen and it blocks more solar radiation. So the ozone layer works two ways to protect us. However, when it started to disappear over the South Pole scientists started to get worried. Without the ozone layer you could walk outside and get a sun tan in minutes, a sun burn in less than an hour and fatal exposure in a few days. Humans can hide, but what about the plants and animals? Some of them can operate at night, but plants can’t move into the shade. The loss of the ozone layer will have a great and disastrous effect on the earth’s climate. It was found that mankind was responsible for a large portion of that hole. A specific chemical that was used in spray cans and as a coolant in air conditioners was found to react with the ozone and pull it out of the air. Too much of that chemical released in the air was causing a depletion of the ozone layer. Fortunately, people listened to scientists and the proof was easy to understand, so they stopped using these carbon-fluorocarbon based chemicals (CFCs). They were removed from the market and alternative coolants and spray can propellants were found. The ozone layer has started to repair itself, but there is still a hole over the South Pole and scientists are not sure why.

Now we are faced with another problem; global warming. This is a simple and long known effect called the greenhouse effect. When the sunlight passes through a pain of glass or plastic it leaves behind heat radiation. This heat radiation tries to escape and some of it is caught increasing the temperature in the greenhouse. Few people argued about the depletion in the ozone layer. Scientists had a simple hole to show them. They are not so sure about Global Warming. In the case of the earth Carbon Dioxide acts like the pain of glass in a greenhouse. It blocks some of the solar heat radiation keeping our planet warm. We all depend on this to survive, without it we would go from temperatures in the high hundreds of degrees during the day and plunge into hundreds of degrees cold at night. This is what happens on Mars and the Moon. The moon doesn’t have very much of and atmosphere, only a faint trace. Mars has a thicker atmosphere, but it is thin enough that it can’t make good use of the greenhouse effect.

Venus is a case of the greenhouse effect run away. There, on the surface, the atmospheric pressure is strong enough to crush you, it is hot enough to melt lead, and sulfuric acid exists in the clouds. There are no signs of life on Venus, and as we understand life it couldn’t evolve. It would be burned, crushed and washed away with acid rain before it got much of a chance.

The Earth could become another Venus if our atmosphere was thicker. Venus probably got started this way because it is closer to the sun and Mar’s distance from the sun is probably why it doesn’t have much of an atmosphere. That and Mars is smaller than the Earth with a weaker gravity field and unable to hold as much atmosphere as the Earth or Venus.

Global warming is real, if man is the entire cause is debatable, but most people think yes. In this case the burning of fossil fuels has dumped too much carbon into the air, which has combined with the existing oxygen forming a higher concentration of Carbon Dioxide. Carbon is fundamental to all life as we know it and every living thing that we know of uses it. Hydrocarbons also make great fuel. The first kinds of fossil fuel used were trees. The trees grew up taking in Carbon Dioxide, breaking it up and using the carbon to grow and expelling the waste gas oxygen. We have been burning trees for fuel for millions of years. The second kind of fossil fuel is what happens to trees, plants and animals when they die. The carbon trapped inside is crushed as layers of layers of dirt and soil covers the decaying remains of the bodies. Over millions of years this layer of dirt becomes heavy enough to crush the remaining carbon into a rock like structure, or into a gas or into a liquid. It depends on the location and the processes that are taking place. The rocks we mine and burn; as coal. The gas is natural gas, which we also burn, and the liquid is oil. So we are burning fossil fuels that were around when the dinosaurs were walking around on the Earth.

We have been burning this extra fossil fuel and dumping it into our air for a very long time, but as our technology improved we were able to get more of it and burn more or it. Most of the United States and China’s electricity is generated by coal power plants. China is building a dam 4 times the size of the Hoover Dam to replace some of those power plants, but there are enough that the air quality in the capitol city has suffered.

Answer 2

Even though the Sun is 93 million miles away, remember that light travels at one hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second, and it only takes the light from the Sun eight minutes to reach the Earth.
Plus the rays and radiation from the sun can cause cancer, and if there was a giant massive solar explosion that sends the energy from the sun in our direction, it could kill every living thing on Earth.
At the end of the sun's life it will swallow up all the inner planets, including the Earth.
So yes it is very dangerous.

Answer 3

Gosh, you might as well ask why it can sustain everything on this Earth - drive the climate, grow the plants, keep us from freezing to death.

Your misunderstanding is common among people because they cannto conceive of the size of the sun, and have no idea what powers it.

If you realise that a small H bomb, no larger than a WWII bomb, can obliterate a city the size of LA, then scale that up to soemthing that is 1.3 million times the size of the Earth, then you have the sun.....

... the whole thing is a fusion bomb weighing a number of tonnes that has 27 zeroes on the end of it.

And something else people don't realise: the Earth only receives about one 2 billionth of the energy that comes from the sun.

To appreciate this, you have to imagine you are on the sun. If you could look into a dark sky, you would see the Earth as a star - a point of light. It's disk only covers a 2 billionth of the sky as seen from the sun. So, only that fraction of the sun's radiation is directed at that tiny point in the sky. The mass of radiation goes everywhere else.

Answer 4

Well, it may be 93 million miles away, but it's also quite large...gigantic really. Its' radiation (electromagnetic radiation that is, or "light") travels through space to the Earth entirely unimpeded until it reaches our thin veneer of atmosphere. The atmosphere filters, scatters, and transmits various parts (wavelengths) of the radiation on toward the surface, or back into space.

That which reaches the surface (in other words, that which was not slowed by the atmosphere) is still pretty darn potent stuff. So, long-term exposure to this radiation is generally harmful. There is a significant amount of energy involved here. But it is particularly important to note that it's the particular wavelengths of light that reach us that hold the real potential for harm. UV is dangerous stuff, and it WILL burn you even with moderate exposure.

Be careful!

Answer 5

93 million miles is a long way in our perception, but the sun is huge and produces a huge amount of all kinds of radiation (visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, etc.).

The amount of radiation received on the Earth is damaging simply because humans are not built to completely block all UV radiation (which is what causes the sunburn) from being absorbed by the skin.
Radiation can damage the skin due to reactions at the cellular level, even if the outward level of radiation appears to be rather moderate.

Answer 6

In Galatic terms, 93 Million miles is about 2 steps.

Answer 7

Hi A supernova will kill you from 10 light years away. It's a matter of energy concentration. The Sun is no different.

Answer 8

because 93 million miles isnt that far. its not buring gas or wood, its using nuclear fusion to create raidiation that can travle through space distances that are farther than comprehension. matter, and energy can not be created or destroyed so if energy comes form the start it will not go away, it travles.

Answer 9

The Sun's rays are pretty strong it even hits mars but not enough to do anything about it! The Suns rays can go up to 20 light years

Answer 10

radiation...and 93 million miles is not far away in space terms

Answer 11

Because light is so fast it only takes 4 minutes to get here and bake you red