Does heat energy escape into outer space?
607531
Heat flows through three mechanisms:\n\n(1) Conduction --- This is what happens when you hold a piece of metal with the other end in a flame. The heat is conducted to your fingertips.\n\n(2) Convection --- This is what happens when you turn the furnace on in the morning. The warm air coming from the outlet mixes with the rest of the air in the room and you feel the heat.\n\n(3) Radiation --- This happens when you step out into the sunlight or under a heat lamp. The radiated heat is the same thing as visible light. It is just a longer wavelength. \n\nThe earth receives radiation from the sun. There is also a small amount of heat carried up from the core where nuclear fission still takes place. This is conducted by both convection (magma) and conduction. There is also a minute amount of heat from fires etc. But most of earth's heat comes from the sun.\n\nThe earth surface loses some heat to the atmosphere (you should be able to figure out which of the three is taking place here). But the biggest loss is radiating heat out into space. The greater heat flow will be from the warmer object to the cooler object. Since space is only a few degrees above absolute zero (search for: "absolute zero" kelvin) the earth loses heat to space.\n\nYou can easily see this on a cool night. Your car will conduct heat to anything contacting it. Heat from the inner parts of the car will conduct to the outer skin of the car. There it will warm the air slightly. The air will carry the heat off through convection. This will continue until the car and the air are the same temperature.\n\nBut, the car is also exposed to space and will continue to radiate heat to space, even after it is colder than the surrounding air. As a result, dew will start to form on the cold car surfaces. If the car is parked under a car, it is not exposed to space. It will not radiate heat off into space. It will still radiate heat, but it will also receive heat back from the tree, which is also radiating. So the car will not cool down far enough to form dew.\n\nIf you are interested in space in general and the moon in particular, try:\nhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/\n\nClear Skies\n\nChuck Taylor
804560
Theres all sorts of energy.  Out in deep space energy is created from nothing, stays for a few microthousandths of a second then disappears again.  We live in a sea of energy, its everywhere- kinda like the force.\n\nThe trick, is figuring out a way to tap into it.  Look up "Moray valve" on the internet- supposedly some guy named Moray figured out a way to tap into this energy back in the 1950's but nobody knows how
469547
"the universeitnt[sic] cooling, the total energy of the universe is a constant. but everything is in a constant state of increseing entropy, or disorder. but this is also in a constant equilibrium with enthalpy, order."\n\nAlthough the energy in the universe is a constant (probably, let's not discuss antimatter), it is cooling (probably, again), because the same energy constant is spread over more area.  Apply say 400J of heat energy to a litre of water and it will warm x degrees, apply  400J (Same amount of energy) to x degree's, it will warm to a higher temperature. Add water to the second scenario, and you have an expanding universe. The reason space is a little above absolute zero is because heat from the beginning singularity ("big bang" perhaps) has reached the area (background microwave radiation) and has heated this space a little, therefore, I beleive it is likely the average temperature accross the universe must have dropped.\n\nI cannot comment on the likelyhood of S.S.B. due to the falling temperature, but have fun with the formulas on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_symmetry_breaking .
12835
Friction occurs when two objects rub together, and is not dependent on gravity. So there would be friction even in outer space.\n\nProbably you are referring to air friction, which happens when objects move through the air. Since there is no air in outer space, there will be no air friction. That is why a moving spacecraft can turn off its rockets and keep moving forever in outer space (as long as it does not hit something or is pulled by gravity of a planet, moon or star).
716907
When a temperature gradient exists in a body, there's an energy transfer from the high-temperature region to the low-temperature region . We say that the energy is transfered by Conduction.\n\nyou have Convection when you have a fluid for your heat transfer . Radiation is also another type of heat transfer which happens by energy beams like IR.\n\nAs far as I know, there's no heat transfer phenomena called absorption .
605145
no...it cant get colder than absolute zero....thats why its called absolute....molecules dont move forward or backward ....you should think of them as energy particles....electrons dont really move around a nucleus either....dont think of them as planets around the sun they are more like energy fields.  the more negative the charge the more "electrons"....if there is any movement....even if it were possible to move backwards it would be warmer....movement causes friction and, therefore, heat.  it you cant get less than nothing.
145763
Linmar--i want to propose MY personal theory, which cannot be scientifically proven in any publication to date.  I had a vision one evening after watching a show about spontaneous combustion victims.  One victim was a middle-aged man with a stump for an arm.  He described the event as a mild tingling with no pain, and much to his dismay, his hand and most of his forearm turned to ash.  \n\nUsing his experience, this isn't about fat burning, or too much oxygen, or even about oxidation as we know it.  The material in our bodies has stored chemical potential energy.  We have internal heat generation which keeps our bodies warm.  It is like a clock spring slowly unwinding.\n\nNOW, if you sped up this clock, relative to normal time-space, your energy would dissipate so rapidly, that the object WOULD turn to ash due to the release of heat.  If a human arm dissipates 10 watts every second for the lifetime of the arm, say 70 years, that equals 22*10^9 joules.  THAT"S A LOT OF ENERGY.  Now for instance, if for some reason a time-space continuum intersected with the man, if his arm actually was accidentally inserted into another dimension whose time constant was 100 times our speed, his arm simply aged and died.  All the energy that would have unwound in this time space over the course of 70 years, unwound in minutes or seconds.  If there are time-space defects and other dimensions, it makes sense that entropy may not unwind at the same pace in all spaces.  \n\nIt reminds me that the earth is travelling at thousands of miles per hour through space.  We have no perception of this at all.  But put a cosmic bed post by the earth, and have an impact, BAM!! Bye-bye earth.  I think it is the same thing.  For some unlucky reason, I beleive this particular man had an interdimensional event wherein the potential energy in his arm dissipated very quickly in that other dimension.  \n\nFood for thought--tell me whatchya think.
845575
Well, the solar energy received by Earth is considered a constant. The heat from residual internal sources is considered to be minimal compared to the amount received by the Sun. Also the idea of a constant temperature is relative to the scale of time and space you choose. I'm not going into variations possibly due to sunspot occurrence, orbital, precession, axis wobble, volcanic, meteor impacts, nor seasonal changes.\nHere is a general model of energy transfers, heating and temperature.\nThe amount and wavelength of energy absorbed by a substance or blackbody causes it to heat to a particular temperature and radiate at a particular wavelength. Though the atmosphere is of a layered, mostly permanent composition and the Earth surface is not contiguous, this helps understand the effect of radiant energy on Earth. The reactions of the Sun make it so hot the radiant energy is essentially short wave (high frequency). Consider 100 units of solar sw received by the Earth (insolation), the atmosphere absorbs 25 (mostly due to ozone in the stratosphere) and reflects or scatters 25, while the water/terrain at the surface absorbs 45 and reflects 5. As the terrain and atmospheric gases absorb the sw energy they heat, but not too hot, and radiate long wave energy (low frequency).\nThe Earth surface radiates 104 units of lw - 100 to the atm and 4 out to space. The atm radiates 154 units - 88 back to Earth and 66 out to space. How can this happen and where does the additional energy come from?\nThere are several parts of this development.\nPart of the reason is the atm is a layered, mostly gaseous composition that exchanges energy amongst the layers, the Earth surface, and out to space. Another part is the other ways energy is transferred, such as the convection and turbulent flow of gases that transfer latent and sensible heat between the surface and atmosphere. You experience this when water is transported and goes through its various phases to develop the local weather.\nLets give these processes values. Convective processes values account for 22 units of latent heat and 7 of sensible heat.\nNow tally the total energy absorbed by the surface as 45 + 88 = 133 and the atm as 100 + 25 = 125. The convective processes ensure the energy balance by transferring 29 units of energy from the surface to the atm to obtain the 104 units and 154 units mentioned earlier. This leads to development of a mean global temperature as we know it at 15 deg C.\nNotice how much the atm is relied upon to transfer energy out to space? Changing the atm composition with additional variable/ long term gases, particulates, and aerosols can alter the events.\nParticulates and some gases can cause more reflection at the top of the atm resulting in less insolation, less heating, and lower temperature. Addition of some gases into the atm can increase the absorbtion of lw radiation or prevent it from being transferred to space. When it comes back to the surface, additional heating and a temperature increase will result if the convective processes cannot adjust for the increased energy.
535445
No it does not.\n\nThe outermost layer is called the "exosphere" and opinions differ as to where it ends and space begins.\n\nHere is a quote from the link below:\nThe atmosphere has no abrupt cut-off. It slowly becomes thinner and fades away into space. There is no definite boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. Three-quarters of the atmosphere's mass is within 11 km of the planetary surface.\n\nIn the United States, persons who travel above an altitude of 50.0 miles (80.5 km) are designated as astronauts. An altitude of 120 km (75 mi or 400,000 ft) marks the boundary where atmospheric effects become noticeable during re-entry. The Karman line, at 100 km (62 mi), is also frequently used as the boundary between atmosphere and space.
345612
It is interesting that infinite temperatures are not ruled out by the theory of thermodynamics, but it is also interesting that it is not possible to heat a body to an infinite temperature. In order to heat a body you need a hotter body - which is not possible when you reach infinite temperatures.\nSome really hot things that I can think of are: \nThe centre of the Sun: 15,600,000 K \nThe corona (outer atmosphere) of the Sun: over 1,000,000 K \nThe tenuous electron gas in clusters of galaxies: 100,000,000 K \nAccretion disks around stellar mass black holes: over 1,000,000 K
188040
Absolutely.\n\nIt is now thought (and even more radio telescope survey evidence on this has just come in) that at the very beginning of things (the Big Bang) there was nothing but energy. As the Universe expanded and cooled, elementary particles were formed from that energy, and some time later, things cooled enough for atoms to form and stay together. Since it takes force to push protons together (to form nuclei of the higher atomic number atoms), and the force wasn't available, only hydrogen (and a very small amount of helium and perhaps an even smaller amount of lithium -- the simplest atoms) resulted.\n\nLots of hydrogen, distributed in a sort of clumpy manner, will eventually collapse into stars. Large stars burn through their available fuel relatively quickly, all the while forcing together protons into more complex atoms such as carbon and oxygen and silicon, and so on. When these large stars go nova, they spray a good part of themselves into interstellar space where the material is incorporated into newly forming stars or collected into clouds around them. As those clouds collapse into planets (which must be very common as we have now seen some hundreds of them around stars in the local area in our galaxy (ie, within a few hundred light years)), the non-hydrogen material in them is actually star stuff. Probably not really dust particles in most cases, but...\n\nAnd that's how it was. Fascinating stuff.
743939
Radio waves, radar, lasers, visible light, infrared and ultraviolet light, microwaves, X-rays and gamma rays, all travel as mass-less tiny packets of energy (photons) at the speed of light.  They can all easily pass through a perfect vacuum (as could a bullet!).  In fact photons interact with the electrons orbiting atoms and molecules and can be absorbed kicking the electrons into higher more energetic orbits or entirely out of the atoms during ionization.  When electrons return to their normal (rest) orbits in one or more steps they give up their excess energy in the form of fresh photons.  When a substance absorbs the energy of photons it will heat up and when the photons are released again the substance will cool.  When you hold up your palm to the sun, you can feel the warmth of the billions of photons that strike your hand which will quickly cool in the shade as it gives up more (infrared) photons than it receives.\n\nThe light that reaches your eye from a distant star is merely composed of photons of different wavelengths (colors) that have traveled through the near-perfect vacuum of space perhaps for years at the speed of light without interacting with any electrons.  In fact, clouds of gas in space could prevent the light from reaching you.
48622
I'm assuming you mean not counting all objects falling from space (not just asteroids) and all objects being "launched" (molecules from the upper atmosphere, the moon etc).\n\nIn that case the only thing coming to or leaving the earth is light. Since the earth is cooler today than when it formed, some of this original energy has escaped into space in the form of infrared radiation.\nOn the other hand, light from the sun has come to earth and its energy has been stored in the chemicals bonds created during photosynthesis.\nSince the entire volume of the earth has cooled, and living things are only present on the surface, my guess it that the cooling effect wins. Thus the net flux of energy due to electromagnetic radiation has been outward, meaning that the earth has lost weight.\n\nThats just a guess, you could probably ask a geologist and ecologist for some numerical estimates.
387707
Temperature decreases w/ height as you move up through the troposphere b/c of a decrease in air pressure.\n\nAir pressure steadily declines as you move up b/c there is less gravity. Since gravity acts on everything that has mass, including air, it holds most of the earth's air close to the ground. Air acts as an insulator or blanket, absorbing long wave radiation reradiated from the earth. When you move upward away from the surface, the air thins out. There is less air to hold heat.\n\nHowever, once you leave the troposphere, you enter the stratosphere. Here the temps steadily increase due to the presence of the ozone layer. The ozone traps heat.\n\nAs you move away from the stratosphere you will enter the mesosphere where temps decrease again due to less air & movement away from the ozone layer.\n\nAs you go even higher & enter the Thermosphere, the temps increase again b/c solar radiation is so intense that the few air particles that are present are super heated. The chances of being burned are slight to none b/c the air particles are few & far between. After all that is what is holding the actual heat.
510244
The Outer space does posses gases, but the vaccum is present because of the incomrehensible size of the universe. Had gases  such as Hydrogen and Helium not been present, there wouldn't have been a sun or nuclear fusion... vaccum indicates absence of matter. It becomes a matter of perspective whether you stand on earth and say that the galaxy andromeda is in outer space but earth is not.. when a hypothetical being on andromeda would say that earth is in outer space but andromeda is not... ;)
99768
Sort of!  As the sun slowly runs out of (mostly hydrogen) fuel, it will expand into a red giant and it's radius will be greater than the current position of the Earth.  However, the Earth's orbit is currently projected to move farther out while this happens so our planet will not actually be engulfed by the sun.  It will, however, experience a very large temperature increase.
472595
doubt it the suns outa layer alone has a temp of 6,000°C (11,000°F. and the inner core with a temp of  15,000,000° C; 27,000,000°F. and pressure (340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level) is so intense that nuclear reactions take place. so its highly doubtful but if there where they'd be some strong little ufos no human nor animal or even a earths creature could possibly survive the heat that intense