Sun's light is dark until it hits Earth, why?

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Jim_Baur

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I forget the whys.

Why is it the energy from the Sun is dark until it hits earth?

Is the darkness connected to the dark matter of the universe?

THANKS!!!

I have studied these things recently, so don’t laugh, thanks!!!

Oh, go on and laugh–it is funny!
 
Jim_Baur said:
I forget the whys.

Why is it the energy from the Sun is dark until it hits earth?

Is the darkness connected to the dark matter of the universe?
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The sun throws off a lot of energy that is not visible to the human eye. We can only see a narrow band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Of the energy thrown off to which our eyes are sensitive we will only detect (see) the energy that is incident to our eyes. This is true for light coming from the sun or even a lightbulb.

You may be thinking about how if you turn on a flashlight you can see the beam of light coming out from it. But this is only because of the dust and other particles in the air that are redirecting some of the light to your eyes. In the absence of these particles you can’t see the light coming out of a flashlight until it either is directly shinning in your face or it reflects off of something else.
 
Similarly the sky is blue because of sunlight scattering from air particles. The blue end of the visible spectrum gets scattered more than the red end. If you found yourself on the moon which has no atmosphere, the sky will appear black.
 
Jim_Baur said:
I forget the whys.

Why is it the energy from the Sun is dark until it hits earth?

Is the darkness connected to the dark matter of the universe?

THANKS!!!

I have studied these things recently, so don’t laugh, thanks!!!

Oh, go on and laugh–it is funny!
Click to expand...
Energy from the Sun isn’t ‘dark,’ it just isn’t visible until it reaches you.
 
The “Visible Light” spectrum is actually a very narrow sliver amidst the other wavelength bands of electromagnetic waves. Something that we all know but most of us don’t think about is that “visible light” is a misnomer because you cannot see light. The light itself, the photons, are not what we see. If we could “see” light, we would all be blind because the photons would be a solid mass between ourselves and the objects of the physical world around us. Theoretically, photons strike your optic nerve at various frequencies and cause a neurological reaction that the brain learns to process as information in terms of the physical world. We have words to describe that: color, shape, distance.

Wavelengths in Meters

Cosmic rays … 10-12
Gamma rays … 10-10
X rays … 10-8
Ultraviolet … 10-7
Visible Light
red … 700 nanometers
orange … 600nanometers
yellow …
green … 500 nanometers
blue …
purple … 400 nanometers
Infrared … 10-4
Microwaves … 10-2
Radio waves … 102
Electricity … 106
 
" Sun’s light is dark until it hits Earth, why?"

Because there are no lightswitches until you get to earth with which to turn it on silly… :eek:
 
Photons travel in straight lines; and we do not see them until they impinge upon our retinae.

So unless you are looking directly at the sun, there is no visible light from it unless reflected by matter, such as air, or the moon, or clouds, etc.

In open space there is nothing to reflect light, and so space is black, although it is anything but dark.

ICXC NIKA
 
An interesting concept – light by itself is invisible; its only use is to make other things visible. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
 
DaveBj said:
Light still has to hit something for any of that to take place.
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I’m not disputing that. What I do disagree with is the statement “[light’s] only use is to make other things visible.”
 
DaveBj said:
An interesting concept – light by itself is invisible; its only use is to make other things visible. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
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See that tree? (Pretend I’m showing you a giant oak.) Know what it’s made of? Sunlight and dirty water. That is all.
 
In fact, light is all we can see.

Our eyes only receive photons. Our minds assemble our view of life from the photons impinging on our retinae.

We have to learn to see life via the light on our eyes. Seeing requires a lot of bra(name removed by moderator)ower!

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
In fact, light is all we can see.

Our eyes only receive photons. Our minds assemble our view of life from the photons impinging on our retinae.
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No. Your iris admits light, which impacts the optic nerve, which transmits an electo-chemical signal to your brain which translates that into size, shape, color and distance.

Your eyes don’t see anything at all, your brain does. Otherwise, no one would see anything when they are asleep.
 
Julia_Mae said:
See that tree? (Pretend I’m showing you a giant oak.) Know what it’s made of? Sunlight and dirty water. That is all.
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Not true. Most of it is carbon taken from the atmosphere. Somehow people often forget that part, just like we often forget that a great deal of the food we eat eventually leaves our bodies through our lungs.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
Not true. Most of it is carbon taken from the atmosphere. Somehow people often forget that part, just like we often forget that a great deal of the food we eat eventually leaves our bodies through our lungs.
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Hmmmmm. Been a while. I think I will disagree in hope you will link me to a site with good information. Plants use Carbon for metabolic processes, they don’t use it to build cells.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
…
You may be thinking about how if you turn on a flashlight you can see the beam of light coming out from it. But this is only because of the dust and other particles in the air that are redirecting some of the light to your eyes. In the absence of these particles you can’t see the light coming out of a flashlight until it either is directly shinning in your face or it reflects off of something else.
Click to expand...
There’s not very much in space at all, not enough to scatter sufficient quantities of light to make a visible “beam” appear to come out of the Sun.

If you took a flashlight into outer space and turned it on, it wouldn’t have a visible beam.
 
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