What is the transfer of heat through space from one place to another and how does heat transfer through space or matter?
Heat transfer through space, unlike on Earth, involves a completely different mechanism due to the vast emptiness of space. Let's explore the two aspects of your question:
Heat Transfer Through Space:
- Mechanism: The only way heat can travel through the vacuum of space is by radiation. This involves the emission of electromagnetic waves, like light, from a hot object that carry the heat energy. These waves travel at the speed of light and don't need any medium like air to propagate.
- Example: The Sun warms the Earth through radiation. The Sun's surface emits various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, including infrared (heat) waves, which travel through space and reach Earth, warming our planet.
Heat Transfer Through Matter:
- Mechanisms: There are three ways heat can transfer through matter:Conduction: Direct contact between objects at different temperatures. The hotter object transfers its thermal energy to the colder object through collisions of their molecules. For example, touching a hot pan causes heat to transfer through your finger. Convection: The movement of heated fluids (liquids or gases) due to density changes. Hot fluid expands and becomes less dense, rising, while colder fluid sinks. This circulation transfers heat. For example, boiling water in a pot causes convection currents. Radiation: Same as in space, hot objects emit electromagnetic waves that carry heat energy, which can be absorbed by nearby objects, warming them. For example, standing near a fireplace feels warm due to radiant heat.
Key Differences:
- Medium: Heat transfer through space requires no medium (like air) while in matter, conduction and convection rely on contact or fluid movement.
- Mechanism: Space uses radiation only, while matter uses all three mechanisms depending on the situation.
- Speed: Radiation in both space and matter travels at the speed of light, while conduction and convection are much slower.
There is heat transport through vacuum on small scales, either by the quantum vacuum or tunneling.
https://www.livescience.com/quantum-vacuum-sends-heat.html
Article Phonon heat transfer across a vacuum through quantum fluctuations
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1800-4.epdf
https://phys.org/news/2015-04-phonon-tunneling-nanometer-wide-gaps.html
Article Acoustic Phonon Tunneling and Heat Transport due to Evanesce...
Article Vacuum Phonon Tunneling
https://pro-physik.de/nachrichten/phononen-tunneln-durchs-vakuum
Regards,
Joachim
Heat can be transferred in three ways: by conduction, by convection, and by radiation. Conduction is the transfer of energy from one molecule to another by direct contact. Radiation is the transfer of heat energy through space by electromagnetic radiation. On Earth, heat is transferred in three ways: conduction (a hot thing touching a cool thing heats it up), convection (hot air transfers heat from one place to another), and radiation (hot things give off infrared radiation, and if you heat them up enough light). In space, the only one of these that applies is radiation. Heat transfer takes place by the process of radiation when there are no particles of any kind which can move and transfer heat. So, in an empty space or vacuum heat is transferred by radiation. Ocean currents transfer heat through convection. Convection is the process of heat transfer by the movement of fluids such as water. When warm liquid is forced to travel away from the heat source, it carries energy with it. Radiation is the primary way that heat travels in space. That means that heat is not spread out through the medium it travels through as on Earth. Radiation is the transfer of heat energy through space by electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation is made of waves of different frequencies. The frequency is the number of instances that a repeated event occurs over a set time. Radiation is the transfer of heat energy through space by electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation is made of waves of different frequencies. The frequency is the number of instances that a repeated event occurs over a set time. Thermal radiation is the transfer of energy via electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves carry energy across space. Thermal radiation is the way that the Sun heats the Earth. The Sun's energy travels in waves through space, not through atoms or molecules.
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