Cold? sun light untill it interacts with oxygen

[Robin07]

Hello everyone, I've been on Electrical Engineering for a little while but new to this aspect of science.

I'm not sure of course but when sunlight travels through space, would it be the approximate temperature of its' surrounding area, pretty cool? And when it hits our oxygenated atmosphere it, or the surrounding area heats up? I find this interesting because, we would assume that when the light is closest to the sun it would naturally be hot then leaving from this ball of fire it cools down and then heats up when it gets here. I understand that energy cannot be destroyed and that it only changes state, is this what's happening here?

Robin07

 

[Danger]

I'm not exactly sure how to put this. Light doesn't actually have a temperature, but it can affect the temperature of things that it interacts with. Saying that light is 'hot' is sort of like saying that a graviton is 'heavy'. Somebody else had better handle this; it's a bit out of my realm.

 

[Robin07]

OK. silly question... I think you have clarified it very well. So I would say that the heat that is being created by the sun has very much dissipated and it's the surrounding area that the light interacts with is heated up.

Thanks

 

[ranger]

You will be interested in this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=85728