• Question: If the sun heats up our planet, why doesn't it heat up other planets in our universe?

    Asked by M&H to Lidunka, Jillian, Connor on 14 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Lidunka Vocadlo

      Lidunka Vocadlo answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      It does! In fact the sun’s energy (heat) goes as 1/(the square of distance from the sun). So it heats up the nearest planets the most, and the furthest planets the least. As for “the rest of our universe”, it drops off quite quickly so becomes nothing by the time you reach another solar system. But that solar system will have it’s own sun which will heat up it’s own planets.

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      It would, if the other planets were close enough! Heat dissipates fairly quickly – if you have any of the old school incandescent light bulbs, you can feel that it’s only hot if your hand is quite close, normally you don’t notice the heat. The distances between solar systems are so extreme that the heat from our sun just never makes it far enough to make a difference to any planets outside our solar system.

    • Photo: Connor Macrae

      Connor Macrae answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      Just to add to the answers already given:

      For planets in our Solar system, quite a few do not have thick enough atmospheres to keep heat from escaping back into space like the Earth does (this is called the Greenhouse effect). So you may not think of, for example Mars, being heated up by the Sun, but in actual fact it is – just the heat is mostly lost on the night side of the planet due to the very thin atmosphere.

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