In Pictures : The Raw Power Of Our Sun.

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
reply to post by Skywatcher2011

 

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni

 

One... little... mistake...

edit on 5/20/2013 by this_is_who_we_are because: second reply line

I knew what you meant...

Originally posted by JimboSliceLV
This fits in well with this thread I would think. Two square meters of focused sunlight can melt steel or even rocks. Over 3000°
Focused sunlight!

Energy of the sun at the Earth's surface is around 1 kilowatts per square meter (527 watts of infra-red light, 445 watts of visible light and 2 watts of ultra-violet light). 14 square meters (14 kilowatts) is enough to power a house with cooker and washing machine. 2 kilowatts is the equivalent of a welding torch.

All of that from a burning ball of gas millions of miles away. For every time that you halve the distance to the Sun, these values would double.

At 150 million miles = 1 earth radius = 1 kilowatt square meter
less than 10000 miles = 8192 gigawatts square meter

That probably doesn't include the magnetic field. At that distance, gravity is around 1000G