• Question: what is the avrage temperture of the sun?

    Asked by cerys to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:


      That depends which bit you mean.

      At the centre we think it’s something like 10 million degrees, due to all the nuclear fusion that’s going on.

      At the surface it’s only (only!) about 5 thousand degrees.

      However, the corona (the bit above the surface, like the atmosphere of the Earth) is meant to be something like 5 million degrees again!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 14 Mar 2012:


      The average surface temperature is about 5000 degrees. If you’ve ever seen a sunspot that’s a very slightly cooler region which therefore look a bit darker.

      But it’s much much hotter in the centre. The central temperature of the Sun is hot enough for hydrogen fusion to happen (Adam looked it up – and he says it’s 10 million degrees).

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 14 Mar 2012:


      It varies a lot, and it depends on where the burning is going on, and where it can be cooled by convection

      The surface of the sun is not as hot as the centre of the earth, but the centre of the sun is hotter than all the centres of all the planets put together!

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 19 Mar 2012:


      It varies but the surface is described as about 6000 deg C. The bit above the surface, which is like an atmosphere, is millions of deg C. And at the centre is is many millions of deg C (and very dense too) so that nuclear reactions can take place. So it varies throughout the sun. The great thing is that we can measure most of this from the ground, and even get ideas of how hot it is inside by the way the sun pulsates (wobbles).

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