Does any of the radiation produced by the sun pass through the earth or is it only reflected or absorbed?

Answer 1

The Sun - as do all stars - radiates a wide variety of energy. The primary energy output of the Sun is in the electromagnetic spectrum, at all frequencies from low-frequency radio to microwaves to heat to light to UV to X-rays and beyond. All of this radiation is blocked by a short distance of dirt.

Charged particle radiation, in the form of alpha particles (helium nuclei) or beta particles (free electrons) are easily blocked; beta particles by anything more than a sheet of paper, and alpha particles by a few feet of dirt.

There is one other form of radiation that our understanding of nuclear physics suggests ought to be emitted by the core of the Sun; neutrinos. Neutrinos interact VERY weakly with any other matter, and should generally pass through the Earth. Unfortunately, this means that neutrinos will generally pass, undetected, through most neutrino detectors, which are made of matter. However, we ought to be able to detect SOME of the solar neutrinos, which brings up a bit of a conundrum. We are not detecting nearly as many solar neutrinos as our understanding of physics suggests that we should be seeing.

So, we have the following possibilities:

1. The Sun may not be emitting as many solar neutrinos as our current models suggest.
2. We may not have designed the neutrino detectors properly, which also suggests that we do not yet understand how neutrinos behave.
3. The models are correct and the neutrino detectors would work, except that the nuclear fusion reaction in the Sun has "gone out" and continues to radiate heat and light from gravitational collapse.
4. Something Else Is Going On.
5. Some combination of the above.

I'm a believer in some combination of 1, 2 and 4.