The total power emitted by the sun is a lot more than "billions" of watts. It is
3.839×10^26 W. That's nearly a billion billion billion watts.
The fraction of that energy intercepted by the earth is
pi*Re^2/(4 pi R^2)
= (1/4)(Re/R)^2
where Re is the Earth's radius and R is the distance of the Earth from then sun.
The sun emits billions of watts of light,heat,and energy ever second. How much of this light,heat, and energy does the Earth benefit from?
1 answer
1 answer