AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Solar radiation, often called the solar resource or just sunlight, is a general term for the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun. Solar radiation can be captured and turned into useful forms of energy, such as heat and electricity, using a variety of technologies.

Detailed explanation-2: -All of the energy from the Sun that reaches the Earth arrives as solar radiation, part of a large collection of energy called the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. Solar radiation includes visible light, ultraviolet light, infrared, radio waves, X-rays, and gamma rays.

Detailed explanation-3: -Electromagnetic radiation is a form of energy that propagates as both electrical and magnetic waves traveling in packets of energy called photons. There is a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation with variable wavelengths and frequency, which in turn imparts different characteristics.

Detailed explanation-4: -Our Sun emits light at progressively shorter wavelengths, too: the ultraviolet, X-ray, and even gamma-ray parts of the spectrum. But most of the Sun’s light is in the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Detailed explanation-5: -[/caption]Radiation from the Sun, which is more popularly known as sunlight, is a mixture of electromagnetic waves ranging from infrared (IR) to ultraviolet rays (UV). It of course includes visible light, which is in between IR and UV in the electromagnetic spectrum.