Sunburn occurs because you spent too long exposed to the sun. Even though the sun is 150 million kilometres away (93 million miles), it is so powerful that it can severely damage your skin and cause you a great deal of pain.
The sun releases ultraviolet rays that can overwhelm special cells in your skin called melanocytes. Melanocytes create a pigment called melanin. Melanin absorbs ultraviolet light and protects your skin from getting damaged by the ultraviolet rays.
Some people have more melanin than others. Dark-skinned people have more melanin than white people. However, melanin can only protect the skin for so long before sunburn occurs. Even dark-skinned people from Africa can get a nasty sunburn.
The process of sunburn is pretty brutal
Ultraviolet light – it should be called ultraviolent – has a lot of energy. When that light hits the skin with enough intensity, the energy can damage the DNA in your skin cells. The damaged skin cells die.
Your immune system senses this and gets to work by sending blood to the damaged areas in an attempt to fix you as soon as possible. This process results in inflammation of your skin. As a result, your skin turns red. If the skin is serously damaged, liquid-filled blisters may form over the some of the sunburn as your immune system tries to both protect and heal your skin.
I’ve had these blisters. They are nasty.
The final stage of sunburn is when your skin peels off. Your body tells the dead skin cells to go away. The most effective way to do this is to have them come off in flakes.
