• JackbyDev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    8 hours ago

    The atmosphere does just “stop” either though. It also forms a gradient. There’s not a magic barrier where the atmosphere is and isn’t. It just gets gradually thinner and thinner. So in the same way there’s a Goldilocks spot in the atmosphere where it’s a comfortable temperature without being too cold, there must be another one near the sun.

    Besides, heat radiation travels through a vacuum. If it didn’t then the Earth wouldn’t get heat from the sun at all.

    • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 hours ago

      It travels through the vacuum, but it doesn’t heat the vacuum, there’s nothing there to heat. The “Goldilocks spot in the atmosphere” is on the ground, that’s why we live here.

      • JackbyDev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 hours ago

        When you’re close enough to the sun it heats you enough, because at some point you’re so close you’ll burn up, and at some point you’ll freeze, so there must be a point between them that’s comfortable. (And yes that might involve spinning so you don’t cook on one side and freeze on the other.) Never said it “heats the vacuum”.