eli5 How is it that things on earth can be “hotter than the surface of the sun”? If the sun is giving energy to basically everything on earth, wouldn’t any earth-item or organism only be able to mimic a fraction of the sun’s energy/power output?
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OK, an experiment. Take something plastic and rub it with something furry. Now move the furry thing away and observe tiny sparks. Those sparks are *incredibly* hot. How do we know? Because they gave off light. We don’t need to care how hot except that they’re hotter than their only source of energy – our muscles. So it’s possible to concentrate energy till it’s hotter than its energy source. Even if we were 100% solar powered, we could still make stuff that hot.
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