June Shores, age 12, of S  Williamsport Penn 

Does the sun heat the air above the ground?

A sunbeam travels from the sun to the earth in about eight minutes, It is, of course, a tiny fraction of the radiant energy put forth by our very own star  And this mighty energy has very mysterious qualities  As it passes through empty space, it is colorless white light, It gives up mne of its heat, Some of its energy is turned to color and heat when it strikes a solid or liquid surface,

The air molecules in our atmosphere also shear off some of its blue rays, which is why our sky is blue  But the air is not dense enough to capture much heat energy from sunlight  The lower layer of our atmosphere gets its warmth from the land and sea below 3t, after they have been warmed by the radiant energy of the sun