Thermal Energy - The Origin of Heat Energy On Earth

The Origin of Heat Energy On Earth

Earth's proximity to the Sun is the reason that almost everything near Earth's surface is warm with a temperature substantially above absolute zero. Solar radiation constantly replenishes heat energy that Earth loses into space and a relatively stable state of near equilibrium is achieved. Because of the wide variety of heat diffusion mechanisms (one of which is black-body radiation which occurs at the speed of light), objects on Earth rarely vary too far from the global mean surface and air temperature of 287 to 288 K (14 to 15 °C). The more an object's or system's temperature varies from this average, the more rapidly it tends to come back into equilibrium with the ambient environment.

Read more about this topic:  Thermal Energy

Famous quotes containing the words origin, heat, energy and/or earth:

    Someone had literally run to earth
    In an old cellar hole in a byroad
    The origin of all the family there.
    Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
    That now not all the houses left in town
    Made shift to shelter them without the help
    Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    Two wooden tubs of blue hydrangeas stand at the foot of the stone steps.
    The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.
    The grackles crack their throats of bone in the smooth air.
    Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.
    Pardie! Summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in mildew....
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    I say, stamping the words with emphasis,
    Drink from here energy and only energy,
    Stephen Spender (1909–1995)

    No imperfection in budded mountain,
    Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
    daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
    green atoms shimmer in grassy mandalas,
    sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
    horses dance in the warm rain,
    Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)