How Does the Earth Receive Heat From the Sun?
How the Sun Produces Heat
The sun is a giant ball of gas floating in outer space. As you've probably learned from science class, the planets in our solar system revolve around the sun.
Not only does Earth have the sun to thank for keeping it on the right course, the sun also warms the Earth. Without its heat, we wouldn't be able to live on our planet. The cold of outer space would be too much for our bodies to survive.
The sun makes this heat from nuclear reactions that give off energy, or heat. It turns hydrogen into helium, and light is created. The temperature of the sun is in the millions, and we would burn up before we even got close to it.
How the Earth Receives the Sun's Heat
The heat comes to the Earth in the form of UV rays the sun gives off. The reactions in the sun create light and heat, filtering through the Earth's atmosphere to us.
The distance the Earth is from the sun and the protection of its atmosphere are what keep the sun's rays from burning us alive. This is the reason so many people are afraid of global warming. They believe that the ozone layer, which blocks much of the sun's harmful rays, is slowly thinning and letting more heat in. Thus temperatures around the world are rising, and if our ozone layer became too thin, we wouldn't be able to survive.
The delicate balance between heat and cold that the sun and Earth work together to create are what sustain such a fragile life form as the human race.
Benefits and Dangers of the Sun to the Earth
The sun's heat benefits us with the warmth to stay alive, and it also gives us light during the day to see by. Did you know the sun also gives us light at night as well? The moon has no light of its own; it simply reflects the sun's light off it to reach us. So its light never truly disappears.
But there are dangers from the sun as well. Sunburn is a common problem that is caused by too much exposure to the sun's harmful rays. It can lead to skin cancer as well as premature aging. The possible thinning of the ozone layer, as previously mentioned, is also a real danger if it gets so thin that we cannot survive the Earth's rising temperatures.
But for now the sun is our greatest ally, keeping us warm and comfortable even though it's around 93 million miles away.
