What 3 things can happen to light when it strikes the surface of the earth?
When light strikes a new medium, the light can be reflected, absorbed, or transmitted. When light is transmitted, it can be refracted, polarized, or scattered.
What 3 things does the sun provide to Earth?
It radiates light and heat, or solar energy, which makes it possible for life to exist on Earth.
What three things can happen to the sun’s radiant energy once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere?
Solar power drives Earth’s climate. Energy from the sun heats Earth’s surface, warms the atmosphere, provides energy for photosynthesis, causes evaporation, drives the weather and water cycles, and powers the ocean currents.
What 3 things can happen to energy in physics?
Energy moves and changes form. Three more ways energy can be transferred are through light, sound, and heat.
What allows light to pass through?
Translucent objects
Translucent objects allow some light to travel through them. Materials like frosted glass and some plastics are called translucent. When light strikes translucent materials, only some of the light passes through them.
What is an effect of an object getting wet?
When an object gets wet and absorbs water, its index of refraction effectively moves closer to that of air. When light strikes a wet object, therefore, less light is reflected than when it is dry. A pair of wet pants, a wet sidewalk, and a wet beach, therefore, reflects less light, and therefore looks darker.
What are 3 ways the earth benefits from the sun’s energy?
The Sun warms our seas, stirs our atmosphere, generates our weather patterns, and gives energy to the growing green plants that provide the food and oxygen for life on Earth.
What happens to energy as it enters the Earth?
Energy released from the Sun is emitted as shortwave light and ultraviolet energy. When it reaches the Earth, some is reflected back to space by clouds, some is absorbed by the atmosphere, and some is absorbed at the Earth’s surface.
What happens to sunlight that reaches the Earth?
The Earth absorbs most of the energy reaching its surface, a small fraction is reflected. In total approximately 70% of incoming radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface while around 30% is reflected back to space and does not heat the surface.
What are three things that can happen to the energy Earth?
More broadly, the energy from the Sun will do one of three main things: Be reflected: Sunlight could strike high clouds, snow or any other reflective surface and head right back out into space unchanged as visible light.
What happens to the energy of the Sun?
The image above divides them up by color. More broadly, the energy from the Sun will do one of three main things: Be reflected: Sunlight could strike high clouds, snow or any other reflective surface and head right back out into space unchanged as visible light.
How does the Earth’s relationship to the sun affect the climate?
Climate changes happen for many reasons. Sometimes wind and oceans change naturally. This can change the climate. Earth’s relationship to the sun also affects climate. How the sun’s rays hit Earth can change how hot it is. How far away Earth is from the sun also makes a difference.
What are the three main paths of energy?
The main paths for energy are as light and heat and are typically classified as the Earth’s energy budget. The image above divides them up by color. More broadly, the energy from the Sun will do one of three main things:
