Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL that A lightning bolt is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. The charge carried by a bolt of lightning is so intense that it has a temperature of 30,000°C (54,000°F). (www.sciencefocus.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

The charges do not have a temperature. It is the their smashing into air that causes the air to heat up. You could heat air up waaaaayyyy higher with electricity, many orders of magnitude hotter. At least onto the 100 millions of Kelvin. My understanding of physics stops somewhere around that point, but I do not see a reason why that should be the limit.

As a side note, the less you have of something, the more irrelevant temperature becomes. You get hit by atoms, electrons, nuclei and other particles that have temperatures well into the billions(!) of degrees/Kelvin.