Estimating The Temperature
Assuming that the only energy source is from the sun, and the albedo is constant throughout the planet, we can get an estimate of a constant temperature. The solar energy flux at a distance can be estimated as:
where is the solar luminosity. The actual incoming energy can be estimated as
where is the albedo of the planet. is the radius of the planet and is the distance to the Sun in astronomical units. The outgoing energy can be estimated using the Stefan-Boltzmann's law
where is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant and is the temperature at equilibrium. Solving the equation:
leads to the following estimate of a planet's temperature
which for Earth is about 255 K or −18 °C
Read more about this topic: Barometric Formula
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