What's five times hotter than the sun and capable of sending a
DeLorean back to the future? Yep, the answer is a bolt of
lightning, which can reach temperatures of roughly 30,000
kelvins (53,540 degrees Fahrenheit). The sun, on the other hand,
is eclipsed in this case — its surface temperature is just 6,000
kelvins (10,340 degrees Fahrenheit). It's one amazing piece of
science trivia, but what exactly does it all mean? First, it's
important to realize that the sun's surface is actually its
coolest layer. Dive down to its core, and you'd encounter plasma
temperatures of about 15 million kelvins (about 27 million
degrees Fahrenheit). Things also heat up just above the sun's
surface, as its atmosphere exceeds temperatures of 500,000
kelvins (about 900,000 degrees Fahrenheit). "Power is the rate
at which energy is used or transferred," explains University of
Washington physics professor Robert H. Holzworth. "So power is
energy per second, and the energy per second in lighting can be
very high, but it only lasts a