You probably recognize the following scenario. You are on a lovely beach holiday and the moment you come back in your hotel room you look in the mirror and your whole body is just as red as a tomato. The tanlines are all over your body and when the water from the shower hits your body, your whole back just hurts. The sun can be very harmful and one of the most harmful ways to humans, as well as animals, is sunburns. A lot of people get skin cancer, for example Melanoma, which is the worst type of skin cancer. However, that doesn’t mean everyone who ever got sunburned also gets skin cancer.
A sunburn is a radiation burn that comes from the sun. The closer you are to the sun, the bigger the chance you get sunburned. If you are in Australia or Africa for example, you get sunburned very fast because it’s very close to the equator. On the other hand, if you are on the water or in the snow, you get sunburned faster then in your backyard. This is because the light reflects, but also because when the salt from the water comes on your body, and sunlight comes on it, it reacts faster and you tan faster. That
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UVA rays penetrate the skin very deeply and can cause melanoma. UVB rays, which don 't penetrate as deep as UVA, cause sunburn and wrinkling but also skin cancer. You can get sunburned in less than 15 minutes when you are in a bathing suit and you have no protection like shade or sunblock. Your skin gets red because the skin reacts immediately by increasing bloodflow to the area. After the burn the skin may turn red in maybe 30 minutes already, but it mostly takes 2 to 6 hours. The pain is usually most extreme in 6 to 8 hours after the burn. The burn stays for about 1 to 3 days and after that the skin will start to peel off in about 3 to 8 days. Sometimes the peeling and itching can continue for another several weeks. About 40% of people get sunburns once a