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This represents the power per unit area of solar irradiance across the spherical surface surrounding the Sun with a radius equal to the distance to the Earth (1 AU). This means that the approximately circular disc of the Earth, as viewed from the Sun, receives a roughly stable 1361 W/m 2 at all times.
The angular diameter of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/11,700 radians (about 18 arcseconds), meaning the solid angle of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/175,000,000 of a steradian. Thus the Sun emits about 2.2 billion times the amount of radiation that is caught by Earth, in other words about 3.846×10 26 watts.
The solar radius is usually defined as the radius to the layer in the Sun 's photosphere where the optical depth equals 2/3: [1] 695,700 kilometres (432,300 miles) is approximately 10 times the average radius of Jupiter, 109 times the radius of the Earth, and 1/215th of an astronomical unit, the approximate distance between Earth and the Sun.
The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 122 PW·year = 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. [12] In 2002 (2019), this was more energy in one hour (one hour and 25 minutes) than the world used in one year. [13] [14] Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass. [15]
Earth orbit (yellow) compared to a circle (gray) Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi), or 8.317 light-minutes, [1] in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes 365.256 days (1 sidereal year), during which time Earth has traveled 940 million ...
A solar flare is a sudden flash of brightness observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as an energy release of up to 6 × 10 25 joules (about a sixth of the total Sun's energy output each second or 160 billion megatons of TNT equivalent, over 25,000 times more energy than released from the impact of Comet ...
Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (1 part in 10 7) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly 1 millionth (10 −6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 AU from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU; 44,000 mi), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU ...
In terms of energy, sunlight at Earth's surface is around 52 to 55 percent infrared (above 700 nm), 42 to 43 percent visible (400 to 700 nm), and 3 to 5 percent ultraviolet (below 400 nm). [7] At the top of the atmosphere, sunlight is about 30% more intense, having about 8% ultraviolet (UV), [ 8 ] with most of the extra UV consisting of ...