-
-------------------- 2540 - SUN POWER - How much reaches your backyard?
-
- There are 88 Constellations in the sky. These are districts mapped out on the sphere of the cosmos that surrounds our Earth. The districts are fenced in with specific stars as the fence posts. We tend to know only the 12 Zodiac Constellations that lie in the plane of the ecliptic.
-
- The ecliptic is the plane of the disk represented by the Sun and the orbiting planets. It would be the same plane as the equator of the Earth if the Earth was spinning like a top on the plane.
-
- But, the Earth is tilted and spinning at 23 ½ degrees of the perpendicular to the plane. Every year the ecliptic passes through the 12 constellations. Looking the same direction at the same time in the night sky we pass through one Zodiac Constellation each month.
-
- The Spring Equinox occurs on March 20. The equinox is the point in the Earth’s orbit where the tilt of the Earth crosses the ecliptic plane and the length of the day and the light are exactly the same, 12 hours.
-
- There is a Fall Equinox on September 20. The Summer Solstice occurs when the days are the longest and the nights are the shortest. That point occurs when the Ecliptic is between the Constellations Gemini and Taurus.
-
- At the Spring Equinox, March 20, the Sun sets exactly due west. Every day the Sun set will march north until it reaches the Summer Solstice. The Sun is giving us almost the same amount of energy all the time.
-
- The slight difference is called the Solar Cycle of Sunspots when the Sun’s output changes a little. The big difference in the Sun’s energy that we feel is caused by the tilt of the Earth towards the Sun. The 23 ½ degrees separates us from summer and winter.
-
- The Sun is converting 657,000,000 tons of hydrogen into 653,000,000 tons of helium every second. In that thermal nuclear reaction there is 4,000,000 tons of mass converted into energy every second. The Earth only captures 2 billionths of this energy, or, a little less of 4 pounds of mass’ worth every second changes our nights into days.
-
- The Sun’s energy spreads out in an expanding sphere in all directions. The sphere expands out with a radius of 93 million miles before it reaches Earth. That takes the energy a little more than 8 minutes to reach us.
-
- The surface of the sphere at that point has a surface area of 4*pi*r^2.
-
-------------- 4 * pi * (9.3*10^7 miles)^2 = pi* 3.46*10^16 square miles.
-
- The part of the sphere that strikes the Earth is the area of the circle having the Earth’s radius of 3,963 miles. Area equals pi*r^2.
-
---------------- pi * (3.963*10^3)^2 = pi* 16.7^10^6 square miles.
-
- So, the amount of energy we receive on the surface of Earth is the ratio of these two areas. That is how much of the 4,000,000 tons per second we receive.
-
----------- 4*10^6 8 15.6*10^6 / 3.46*10^16 = 18.1*10^-4 tons / second
-
----------- 3.6 pounds / second.
-
- My yard is 1.16 acres or 1.81 *10^-3 square miles. So, of this 3.6 pounds the Earth gets my yard gets 0.115*10^-9 lbs per second.
-
---------- So, the fusion energy that heats my yard comes from 0.000000000115 pounds of hydrogen mass converted to energy every second.
-
------- One hydrogen atom, a proton, has a mass of 1.67*10^-27 kilograms. I am using 5.22 * ^-11 kilograms. So, my yard uses 31,000,000,000,000,000 hydrogen atoms every second in order to grow grass and a vegetable garden.
-
Just thought you should know that.
-
- December 13, 2019 2540 1168 1169
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
--- Some reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
-- email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
--- to: ------ jamesdetrick@comcast.net ------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
- https://plus.google.com/u/0/ -- www.facebook.com -- www.twitter.com
--------------------- Tuesday, December 17, 2019 --------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment