Types of radiation emitted by the Sun and Earth - A comparisonSource: Earthguide
Questions for discussion
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Take away concepts
The sun emits mostly visible light.
Visible light, or the colors that we see are parts of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum.
The Earth emits mostly longer wavelength infrared radiation that we cannot see.
Sunlight made up of visible light passes through the atmosphere on the way into Earth, but the greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere absorb infrared radiation going out to space.