1. Solar Energy: The sun emits vast amounts of energy, including visible light, infrared radiation, and ultraviolet radiation. This solar energy reaches the Earth's surface and interacts with various objects, such as rocks.
2. Absorption: The rock at Death Valley is composed of minerals that can absorb solar energy effectively. When the sunlight strikes the rock's surface, the minerals within the rock absorb the energy, causing their atoms and molecules to vibrate faster.
3. Conversion to Thermal Energy: As the atoms and molecules in the rock vibrate more rapidly, their kinetic energy increases, leading to an increase in temperature. This rise in temperature is what we perceive as heat.
4. Thermal Radiation: The heated rock releases some of its absorbed solar energy back into the environment through thermal radiation. Thermal radiation is the emission of electromagnetic radiation by objects due to their temperature.
So, when a rock at Death Valley, California becomes hot during a summer afternoon, the primary energy transformation is from electromagnetic radiation (sunlight) to thermal energy (heat) through the processes of absorption and subsequent release of thermal radiation.
