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How much dimmer is the light on Saturn than earth

Just wondering does anyone know how much dimmer the suns light is on Saturn than earth, an equation would be great if anyone knows one.

Reply 1

joostan

Original post by SamRob85

Just wondering does anyone know how much dimmer the suns light is on Saturn than earth, an equation would be great if anyone knows one.

Intensity = Power/Area
The area is the area of the sphere given by 4pi*r²
r in this case is the distance from the sun to the point you are interested in.
Remember SI units :smile:

Wikipedia will have the values for power I imagine :smile:

Reply 2

SamRob85

LOL i think is 1365039004x dimmer than the light on earth

Reply 3

Stonebridge

Original post by SamRob85

LOL i think is 1365039004x dimmer than the light on earth

The distance from the Sun to Saturn is about 9.5 times the distance of the Sun to the Earth.

The intensity of the light, as joostan says, is proportional to the inverse square of the distance.

So, to give you a clue, if it was proportional to just the inverse of the distance (not square) the intensity would be 1/9.5 on Saturn, compared with Earth.
But as it depends on the (inverse) square, it would be...
?

Reply 4

SamRob85

So its 1/90.25 of the intensity of the light on earth?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 5

Stonebridge

Original post by SamRob85

So its 1/90.25 of the intensity of the light on earth?

Yes 9.5² is the factor by which it is reduced. :smile:

If you look up a table of planetary data (loads if you Google it) and find the distance of a planet from the Sun in AU (Astronomical Units, Earth=1) you will see the value for Saturn is about 9.5AU.

From this you can do the same calculation for any of the other planets.