The Solar Corona Is Much Cooler Than The Sun Surface

Tech science sun solar jets plasma one of the biggest mysteries of the sun is why its upper atmosphere also known as the corona is over 200 times hotter than its surface.

The solar corona is much cooler than the sun surface.

The temperature in the corona is a blistering million or so degrees celsius. She likens it to walking away from a campfire and feeling colder and colder until suddenly getting very hot. Clear evidence now suggests that the intense heat of the sun s atmosphere depends on explosive bursts not continuous heating. Abstract the processes that heat the solar and stellar coronae to several million kelvins compared with the much cooler photosphere 5 800 k for the sun are still not well known1.

But the temperature at the sun s surface the source of that energy is a relatively balmy 5 500 degrees. This solution to the coronal heating mystery was presented at a media briefing on april 28 2015.