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?

Question

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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Answer 1

Unmentioned so far is an interesting quirk of optics: whatever you do, you cannot directly* use sunlight to create anything hotter than the surface of the sun!
So however hard you try and whatever the size of your lens(es), you won’t get 7000°C this way. In this special setting, the title’s presumption is correct!

*: Directly means things such as mirrors and lenses; don’t change the light into a different form of energy in-between.