• Question: Why is space cold?

    Asked by 372radg49 to Pip on 17 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Pip Millington

      Pip Millington answered on 17 Nov 2016:

      What we perceive as heat can really be explained in 3 ways,

      The heat gets transferred from particles with high energy to particles with lower energy through solids (conduction) or liquids/gases (convection) OR by being exposed to infrared waves (radiation).

      In space there are very few particles and whatever radiation there is acts over huge distances so by the time it gets far away from its source, the amount of heat felt is a lot less.

      So, space is cold because there isn’t much there and what is there is far away from things which are warm.

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