ExploraTour - How to Build a Star


The Earth is a very cool place compared to the center of a star. Just how hot are the hottest spots on Earth? On a mid-September day in 1922, temperatures in Libya reached 58 degrees C (136.4 degrees F) ... the hottest weather ever recorded.

But we can do better than that if we travel to the center of the Earth. Here the temperature soars to some 5000 degrees C (~9000 degrees F). To give you an idea of just how hot this is, temperatures of only 1500 degrees C (2800 degrees F) can cause solid iron to melt into a fiery liquid in blast furnaces. One final attempt, temperatures at the center of the main branch of a lightning strike can reach 33 thousand degrees C.

At the center of a star, the temperature must reach or exceed 5 million degrees C before nuclear reactions begin to convert the star's gases into energy. In the sun, we think temperatures reach an amazing 15 million degrees C.


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Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA