Why does heat give off infrared radiation?

Heat is what we feel when infrared radiation strikes us, and interacts with the molecules in our body. Most objects will radiate with some sort of approximation to a black body law. read more

Infrared radiation is heat. Heated materials give off radiation in the Electromagnetic spectrum which we call infrared. It is too low a frequency for the human eye to detect, but our nerves can detect the radiation as heat. So although we can't see heat, our nerves can detect it in a way that we call heat. read more

Infrared radiation is a type of electromagnetic radiation, which involves waves rather than particles. This means that, unlike conduction and convection, radiation can even pass through the vacuum of space. This is why we can still feel the heat of the Sun, although it is 150 million km away from the Earth. read more

Note that most of the radiation is in the infrared. Heat may be defined as energy in transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object. An object does not possess "heat"; the appropriate term for the microscopic energy in an object is internal energy. read more