Engineering

Researchers' 'cooling glass' blasts building heat into space

University of Maryland researchers aiming to combat rising global temperatures have developed a new "cooling glass" that can turn down the heat indoors without electricity by drawing on the cold depths of space.

Engineering

Solar farms in space are possible, say scientists

It's viable to produce low-cost, lightweight solar panels that can generate energy in space, according to new research from the Universities of Surrey and Swansea.

Engineering

Solar cell material can assist self-driving cars in the dark

Material used in organic solar cells can also be used as light sensors in electronics. This has been shown by researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, who have developed a type of sensor able to detect circularly polarized ...

Energy & Green Tech

Scientists explore solar cell-based hybrid energy harvesters

Energy harvesting stands out as a vital player in our modern world. Solar energy, with its renewable and environmentally friendly characteristics, has gained immense popularity in various applications, ranging from small ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

A smart color-changing flexible battery with ultra-high efficiency

With the rapid growth of the smart and wearable electronic devices market, smart next-generation energy storage systems that have energy storage functions as well as additional color-changing properties are receiving a great ...

Engineering

Smart windows redefine solar radiation control in buildings

A research team led by Prof. Yu Shuhong from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed a new strategy to prepare smart windows that dynamically regulate solar ...

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Sunlight

Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the atmosphere, and the solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. Near the poles in summer, the days are longer and the nights are shorter or non-existent. In the winter at the poles the nights are longer and for some periods of time, sunlight may not occur at all. When the direct radiation is not blocked by clouds, it is experienced as sunshine, a combination of bright light and heat. Radiant heat directly produced by the radiation of the sun is different from the increase in atmospheric temperature due to the radiative heating of the atmosphere by the sun's radiation. Sunlight may be recorded using a sunshine recorder, pyranometer or pyrheliometer. Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach the Earth. The World Meteorological Organization defines sunshine as direct irradiance from the Sun measured on the ground of at least 120 watts per square metre.

Direct sunlight has a luminous efficacy of about 93 lumens per watt of radiant flux, which includes infrared, visible, and ultra-violet light. Bright sunlight provides luminance of approximately 100,000 candela per square meter at the Earth's surface.

Sunlight is a key factor in photosynthesis, a process crucially important for life on Earth.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA