Mondo Knows Facts
The Sun outer corona is hundreds of times hotter than its surface
While the solar surface sits at 5,500 degrees C the corona reaches millions
The visible surface of the Sun, the photosphere, has a temperature of roughly 5,500 degrees Celsius. Surprisingly, the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, reaches temperatures exceeding one to three million degrees Celsius. Scientists believe magnetic wave dissipation and reconnection fuel this heating mechanism.
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Tags: sun, corona, temperature
The Sun outer corona is hundreds of times hotter than its surface: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- While the solar surface sits at 5,500 degrees C the corona reaches millions. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a space fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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