Consider the following statements: A person in a spaceship located half way between the earth and the sun will notice that the I. Sky is jet black. II. Stars do not twinkle. III. Temperature outside the spaceship is much higher than that on the surface of the earth. Of these statements

The correct answer is D because of the following reasons: Statement I is correct because the sky appears blue on Earth due to the scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere. In space, there is a vacuum with no atmosphere to scatter light, so the sky appears jet black. Statement II is correct because the twinkling of stars is an optical illusion caused by atmospheric refraction as light passes through different layers of Earths air. In the vacuum of space, there is no atmosphere to refract the light, so stars appear as steady points of light. Statement III is correct because the person is located in the interplanetary medium, much closer to the sun than the Earth is. Without an atmosphere to reflect or absorb intense solar radiation, the kinetic temperature of the sparse particles in space and the direct thermal radiation from the sun are significantly higher than the average temperatures on Earths surface.