Engineering

24/7 solar towers could double energy output

If you want to improve the output of solar energy systems, why not also run them at night? That's the question researchers in Qatar and Jordan addressed as they successfully devised a system that promises to more than double ...

Energy & Green Tech

Device generates light from the cold night sky

An inexpensive thermoelectric device harnesses the cold of space without active heat input, generating electricity that powers an LED at night, researchers report September 12 in the journal Joule.

Engineering

Solar cell keeps working long after sun sets

About 750 million people in the world do not have access to electricity at night. Solar cells provide power during the day, but saving energy for later use requires substantial battery storage.

Energy & Green Tech

Chill out: Advanced solar tech runs cooler and lasts longer

Australian photovoltaics researchers have made a 'cool' discovery: Singlet fission and tandem solar cells—two innovative ways to generate solar power more efficiently—also help to lower operating temperatures and keep ...

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

Harvesting drinking water from humidity around the clock

Fresh water is scarce in many parts of the world and must be obtained at great expense. Communities near the ocean can desalinate sea water for this purpose, but doing so requires a large amount of energy. Further away from ...

page 1 from 6

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