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Thursday, November 15, 2018

Electromagnetic Science and the Greenhouse Effect

Electromagnetic radiation is a stream of photons, which are 'massless' particles each traveling in a wave-like pattern and moving at the speed of light. Each photon contains a certain amount of energy, and all electromagnetic radiation consists of these photons. The only difference between the various types of electromagnetic radiation is the amount of energy found in the photons. Radio waves have photons with low energies, microwaves have a little more energy than radio waves, infrared has still more, then visible, ultraviolet, X-rays, and ... the most energetic of all ... gamma-rays.

Actually, the electromagnetic spectrum can be expressed in terms of energy, wavelength, or frequency. Each way of thinking about the EM spectrum is related to the others in a precise mathematical way. So why do we have three ways of describing things, each with a different set of physical units? After all, frequency is measured in cycles per second (which is called a Hertz), wavelength is measured in meters, and energy is measured in electron volts.

Note:
Electromagnetic radiation from space is unable to reach the surface of the Earth except at a very few wavelengths, such as the visible spectrum, radio frequencies, and some ultraviolet wavelengths. Hence, the reason I’ve included this posting in my series on the greenhouse effect and global warming induced climate change.

Read:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
More about the Electromagnetic Spectrum:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/emspectrum.html

Now read:
The Multiwavelength Universe
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/multiwavelength.html

Imagine the Universe Science:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/science.html