Is microwave radiation the same as infrared radiation?

Answer 1

Answer No.

Infrared radiation is electromagnetic radiation at wavelengths between 750 nanometres and 1 millimetre.

Thermal radiation is all electromagnetic radiation emitted from an object due to its temperature and follows a "black body spectrum".

The reason we generally refer to Infrared as 'heat' is because that is the main form of radiation emitted from objects at temperatures we encounter day to day. In actual fact, ANY electromagnetic radiation can heat a surface it hits. So yes, you can be warmed by yellow light if it was bright enough.

So to clarify, thermal radiation can sometimes be infrared (and sometimes yellow, or red, or blue, or ultraviolet, or microwave, or radio!). Infrared radiation can sometimes be thermal (but can be generated by methods other than an object's heat).

The thermal radiation your body emits is mostly far infrared with some very weak microwaves.

The thermal radiation from the Big Bang is 3K, so cold that it has no infrared at all in it, only microwave, UHF/VHF (causing snow on the older analog TV screens), and some very weak shortwave radio!

The thermal radiation from a few very very big and hot Blue Giant stars is actually mostly x-rays!

Answer 2

No, if you look at a chart of the electromagnetic spectrum, you will see that microwave radiation is a longer wavelength ( approx. 1x10^8 Hz to 1x10^11Hz). Infrared is a smaller wavelength - approx 1x10^13 to ^15. The smaller the wavelength, the more able it is to penetrate matter.

Radio waves do not penetrate our body because they are so very large, on the flip side, x-rays are very very small wavelengths and therefore can pass through our body.

Answer 3

Microwave is lower frequency.