It’s the weekend and that means I have set aside the hammer and the bullhorn, if only for now, and seek the distraction of cosmology and astrophysics. Good times. This is not so much an update as more the sharing of sun facts recently found in the latest issue of Good magazine. If you don’t read Good, you should. Good is really, really good. One of the things that Good does in each issue is provide informational graphics on a number of interesting topics. In the latest issue they offered up some detail on our very own sun, which I add to my post on the sun of some weeks ago:
- - In 1 second the sun produces energy to meet the needs of our planet for 500,000 years
- - It takes eight minutes for light from the sun to reach the Earth
- - Solar energy hitting the Earth every second is equivalent to 4 trillion 100 watt light bulbs
- - Solar energy hitting one square mile each year is equivalent to 4 million barrels of oil
- - Only 1% of the electricity generated in the United States is from solar power… 1%!
These facts are nothing new, and yet we still struggle to create momentum behind solar energy in this country. Old habits die hard.
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November 5th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Fascinating stuff. AND before anyone gets bent out of shape - I’m just asking a question. With that much energy…4 TRILLION 100 watt light bulbs hitting the Earth every SECOND….are we sure that we are responsible for climate change on a global scale? It seems to me that the Earth as a system is affected by things that are on a far larger scale than our car emissions. I know i’m over simplifiying, but surely nothing we are doing equals that kind of impact on our environment. Signed, Devil’s Advocate.
November 10th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
That is a good point to bring up. I would counter that the Earth’s atmosphere, and the solar system at large, have essentially evolved to work in balance with that consistently intense barrage of energy. If they had not, the Earth would have been bleached by solar energy eons ago. This has much to do with the distance we are from the sun, and that our atmosphere combined with the Earth’s electromagnetic field for the most part protects the planet from the worst of the sun’s energy. Planets like Mercury are not so fortunate. Mercury is prevented from having any sort of substantial atmosphere due to its close proximity to the sun, and is therefore a planet subject to the insane heat/light/electromagnetic intensity of the sun in the worst possible way.
The Earth’s atmosphere and electromagnetic force are like a solar shield. The effects of human “progress” are essentially eating this shield away from the inside.
October 13th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
[...] have posted about the sun previously (here and here), but the images I came across today at The Big Picture stopped me in my tracks. Simply amazing. [...]