When Charlie came home from school, he turned on a garden hose that had been sitting in the sun all day. The water that came out of the hose was so hot, he could hardly touch it. What happened to the water molecules that made the water feel so hot? The solar energy hitting the hose made the water molecules move faster. The individual water molecules got larger as they absorbed the solar energy. The warmth of the soil around the hose made the water molecules move slower. The heat energy from the Sun was stored as chemical energy in the water molecules.