Library / English Dictionary

SOLAR RADIATION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Radiation from the sun

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("solar radiation" is a kind of...):

radiation (energy that is radiated or transmitted in the form of rays or waves or particles)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "solar radiation"):

insolation (incident solar radiation)

flare; solar flare (a sudden eruption of intense high-energy radiation from the sun's surface; associated with sunspots and radio interference)

solar prominence (large eruptions of luminous hydrogen gas that rise thousands of kilometers above the chromosphere)

solar wind (a stream of protons moving radially from the sun)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Decreased cloudiness allowed more solar radiation to reach the plants, which typically promotes photosynthesis, but in this case it likely posed an extra stress on the plants from the resulting depletion of soil moisture.

(NASA finds drought may take toll on Congo rainforest, NASA)

A previous paper led by Heavens showed that during a 2007 global dust storm on Mars, water molecules were lofted into the upper atmosphere, where solar radiation could break them down into particles that escape into space.

(Global Storms on Mars Launch Dust Towers Into the Sky, NASA)