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Why Rain Drops Refuse to Be Ridiculous

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Why Rain Drops Refuse to Be Ridiculous A thoughtful, nerdy, slightly cheeky look at rain Rain feels simple. Water falls. We get wet. End of story. Except it isn’t simple at all. Rain is the outcome of a delicate truce between gravity , surface tension , air resistance , thermodynamics , and chaos — and it works only because raindrops are small enough to survive the trip . Let’s start inside the cloud. Cloud droplets: the illusion of emptiness A cloud looks fluffy, but it’s actually a dense suspension of liquid droplets and ice crystals , typically 10–20 micrometres in diameter . On their own, these droplets fall so slowly they might as well be levitating. Rain requires growth , and growth requires collisions. Turbulence jostles droplets around. Larger ones fall slightly faster, collide with smaller ones, merge, and grow. This runaway process eventually produces drops heavy enough that gravity overcomes updrafts . At that point, the drop is no longer part of the cloud. It’s rain — ...
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Why Rain Isn’t the Size of a Bus (and other wet mysteries)

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Why Rain Isn’t the Size of a Bus (and Other Wet Mysteries) For curious early high-school minds If you’ve ever been caught in the rain, you’ve probably noticed something important: Rain falls in drops . Small ones. Sensible ones. Not giant wobbling water monsters that flatten houses and knock pigeons out of the sky. Which raises a very reasonable question: Why aren’t raindrops ten feet wide? Let’s investigate. First: What is a raindrop, really? A raindrop begins its life inside a cloud — which is basically a floating traffic jam of tiny water droplets and ice crystals . These droplets are microscopic . Thousands of them could fit on the head of a pin and still argue about personal space. Cloud droplets bump into each other, stick together, bump again, stick again… and slowly grow. This is called collision and coalescence , which sounds like a sci-fi band but is actually just water playing bumper cars. Eventually, a droplet gets big enough that gravity says, “Alright, you’ve had your f...
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What Is Sunlight?

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What Is Sunlight? Introduction Sunlight is often described simply as “light from the Sun,” but this description barely scratches the surface. Scientifically, sunlight is a continuous stream of electromagnetic radiation produced by nuclear reactions in the Sun’s core and transmitted across space to Earth. Understanding sunlight means understanding astrophysics , atmospheric science , biology , and climate — all of which directly influence weather and forecasting. This article explores sunlight in greater depth, from its origin inside the Sun to its role in shaping Earth’s environment. The Physical Origin of Sunlight The Sun is a main-sequence star composed primarily of hydrogen and helium . At its core, temperatures exceed 15 million degrees Celsius, and pressures are high enough to force hydrogen nuclei to fuse together. This nuclear fusion process converts hydrogen into helium through a series of reactions known as the proton–proton chain . In each reaction, a small amount of ma...
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What Is Sunlight? The Energy That Powers Our Weather

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What Is Sunlight? The Energy That Powers Our Weather Introduction Sunlight is something we experience every single day. It wakes us up in the morning, warms our skin, helps plants grow, and drives the weather we see on our apps. But even though it feels familiar, sunlight is actually an incredible natural phenomenon. So what is sunlight, really? Where does it come from, and why is it so important to life and weather on Earth ? Let’s break it down in a simple, easy-to-understand way. Where Sunlight Comes From Sunlight comes from the Sun , a huge star located about 150 million kilometres away from Earth. The Sun is an enormous ball of extremely hot gas, mostly hydrogen . Deep inside the Sun’s core, intense heat and pressure cause hydrogen atoms to combine and form helium . This process releases a massive amount of energy. That energy slowly makes its way to the Sun’s surface and is then sent out into space as light and heat — what we call sunlight. Even though the Sun is incredibly far...
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