How do solar panels turn sunlight into electricity?
Sunlight's Electric Trick
How do solar panels turn sunlight into electricity?
You flip a switch and the lights come on. You charge your phone and it hums back to life. But where does that electricity come from? Sometimes it comes from sunlight hitting a dark blue panel on a roof — and the way that happens is one of the cleverest tricks in all of physics.
Sunlight isn't just brightness — it's made of tiny packets of energy called photons, billions of them streaming down every second like invisible raindrops. When a photon smacks into a solar panel, it doesn't bounce off. It gets absorbed, and that's where the magic starts.
