Q:

Calculating the amount of heat energy radiated by sun

How do I calaculate the amount of heat energy radiated from the sun in one minute?? Well, i tried some stefan method, but the answer seems far off from the correct one....well, i would thus strongly want to have some help in this regard..

A:

You should be able to show us how you have tried to answer the question, but you sound genuinely desparate. Is this the way you tried to answer your question? Check your method with this one.
You have the following data: (see if you can find more accurate ones)
Surface temperature of the sun, $T = 5,800$K
Radius of the sun, $R=6.995\times 10^8$m
Stefan's constant,$\sigma = 5.670\times 10^{-8}$Wm$^{-2}$K$^{-4}$
The equation for the thermal energy per second (that is Power) radiated by the sun is
$P= 4\pi R^2\sigma T^4$.
So if you put the data in you should find
$P=3.95\times 10^{26}$W
To find the amount of energy emitted in one minute you must multiply by 60, so you get
$E=2.37\times10^{28}$J.
Do the calculations yourself using the calculator carefully.

