New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Radiant energy

Radiant energy is the energy of electromagnetic waves. The term is most commonly used in the fields of radiometry, solar energy, heating and lighting, but is also used less frequently in other fields (such as telecommunications). The quantity of radiant energy may be calculated by integrating radiant flux (or power) with respect to time and, like all forms of energy, its SI unit is the joule. In applications involving transmission of power from one location to another, "radiant energy" is sometimes used to refer to the electromagnetic waves themselves, rather than their energy (a property of the waves). Because electromagnetic (EM) radiation can be considered to be a stream of photons, radiant energy can be viewed as the energy carried by these photons. Alternatively, EM radiation can be viewed as an electromagnetic wave, which carries energy in its oscillating electric and magnetic fields. These two views are completely equivalent, and are reconciled to one another in quantum field theory.

Related Stories
 


Earth & Climate News

July 22, 2026

Ancient fern savannahs may have transformed parts of Europe into a wildfire-prone inferno during the end-Triassic mass extinction. New fossil evidence suggests the ferns repeatedly regrew after fires, creating fresh fuel that helped prolong the ...
Ancient sediment reveals that some of K’gari’s deepest lakes vanished around 7,500 years ago, despite unusually heavy rainfall. The surprising discovery suggests changing winds and future climate ...
China’s Chang’e-6 samples have uncovered a surprising difference between the Moon’s two hemispheres. Solar wind particles penetrated deeper into the far-side soil because Earth’s ...
Oxygen is disappearing from oceans, lakes, rivers, and coastal waters at an alarming rate, threatening aquatic life and weakening the natural processes that help regulate Earth’s climate. Scientists warn that this widespread deoxygenation is ...
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region of the solar system. Its unusual chemistry suggests that planet-cooling dust and debris, ...
Scientists have found evidence that a major Cascadia earthquake could trigger a second quake on the San Andreas Fault. The discovery came from unusual sediment layers formed by underwater landslides ...
A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. The debris was launched from near a gravitational gateway controlled by Jupiter, sending fragments toward Earth, the ...
Seismic waves have revealed that the oceanic plate beneath the Ontong Java Plateau was dramatically transformed by the colossal volcanic activity that created it more than 100 million years ago. Researchers found a complex structure of horizontal ...
Tiny plastic particles in drinking water may be doing more than contaminating the environment. New research suggests nanoplastics can actually help harmful bacteria survive by strengthening the slimy biofilms they form inside water systems. These ...
A major DNA study has rewritten the koala's evolutionary story, revealing that the species suffered a dramatic population collapse about 100,000 years ago, long before humans arrived in Australia. By calculating the koala's mutation rate for the ...
Researchers have created self-destructing living plastic that uses engineered bacteria to completely break itself down when activated. The material degrades in just six days without creating ...
Scientists have identified a hidden feedback loop that may explain how Earth has regulated its climate for tens of millions of years. As sea levels rose and fell, they changed how much phosphate reached the open ocean, affecting marine life and the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:56 pm ET