: Why do they say the area around the sun is hotter than the surface itself, it doesn’t make any sense.

Question

How can the empty space around the sun be millions of degrees hot and the surface only thousands ? it doesn’t make any sense.

In: 96

Answer 1

It doesn’t make sense because you are thinking something hot would feel hot. It wouldn’t feel that hot if you stuck your hand it it. There just isn’t much “there” to feel, it’s almost a vacuum. But the few molecules of gas that are there, are moving really really fast, which is how you measure temperature. The same thing happens in the upper atmosphere of the earth actually. The “temperature” of the upper atmosphere is thousands of degrees but you wouldn’t notice it passing through.