thermodynamics - What is thermal radiation? How does it move through space?

Assume that by some mysterious(at the lack of a better word) way I was able to make a bonfire on the moon and was able to sit next to it without a space suit.

I will not be able to feel the heat form the fire as a result of convection as there is no atmosphere

Now my question is will I be able to feel the heat from the fire as a result of radiation? As far as I know a wood fire does not produce electromagnetic waves or does it?

In short what is thermal radiation?

Answer

I will not be able to feel the heat form the fire as a result of convection as there is no atmosphere

True, but no atmosphere also means no oxygen for the fire, so this example is kind'a off.

Now my question is will I be able to feel the heat from the fire as a result of radiation?

Yes.

If the fire was at Earth (in an atmosphere with oxygen) the strong heat you feel when holding your hands above the fire is from natural convection. But standing beside the fire, you still feel the heat. Convection cannot be the cause of this, if no wind is moving hot air your way - instead this is due to thermal radiation.

As far as I know a wood fire does not produce electromagnetic waves or does it?

Yes, it does.

Any material with a non-zero temperature produces thermal radiation - this is simply a type of electromagnetic wave. You own body radiates heat, and anything else you see around you radiates heat. Stefan-Boltzmann's law describes this:

$$I=\epsilon \sigma T^4$$

($I$ is heat from each square meter $[W/m^2]$ as thermal radiation, $\epsilon$ the emmisivity (how well the object radiates heat), $\sigma$ the Boltzmann's constant, $T$ the temperature.)

In short what is thermal radiation?

The thermal radiation is electromagnetic waves as any other kind of radiation. If you can see fire, sparks, lightning etc. the temperature is so that the electromagnetic waves are in the visible spectrum. As a red-hot iron bar. If not, then you can't see the radiation - but it still is there outside of the visible spectrum (in the infrared part most likely).

One can from Wien's displacement law see that higher temperature apart from radiating more strongly, also shifts the wavelenghts of the radiation towards lower values - towards the visible spectrum: