If it is true that lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun, why are we not burnt by it??????

Question

It cant be that it is to far away as I am told a piece of the sun the size of a pin head can be felt 100 miles away. Is this also true?

Answer 1

You ARE burnt if lightning hits you, severely

Answer 2

The lightning travels very rapidly, in steps of about 100 metres, towards the Earth but is quite faint. When this leader stroke gets close to the ground a strong electrical field is created and the lightning strike releases an enormous amount of energy, and thus very high temperatures. In fact, a bolt of lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun, and it is this heat that we see as the lightning flash.

Of course, real lightning from thunderstorms is far more powerful. One lightning bolt can reach 30,000°C, five times hotter than the sun. Air can often smell 'burnt' after a lightning strike, as the huge amount of energy released can alter molecules in the air. This heating also causes thunder as the air rapidly expands and then contracts, causing vibrations. These vibrations, or sound waves, we hear as thunder.

Lightning's return stroke is hotter than the surface of the sun. Lightning is 50,000ºF. The surface of the sun is about 11,000ºF.

How wide is a bolt of lightning?
A big lightning bolt striking the ground might seem be hundreds of feet across, but in actuality the current channel is generally not much thicker than a pencil.

I couldn't get a straight answer on how far away it can be felt.

The skin burn from lightning strikes may not be severe. Lightning current usually flows over the body (flashover) and does not injure deeper organs or tissues, which is the reason some people can survive a lightning strike. A direct lightning strike can occur when a person is holding or wearing metal objects. Lightning can also strike objects near a person, and some of the lightning current can travel to the person indirectly. The electrical current from lightning can cause the same problems as from other electrical sources, depending on how direct the strike is. Participating in outdoor sports activities increases your risk of being struck by lightning.

You need to be evaluated by a health professional if you have been struck by lightning, even if the injury appears minor. Burns from a lightning strike or electrical power also need to be evaluated by a health professional.

Answer 3

A quick reality check on this.
The energy radiated by a hot object is proportional to the surface area and the temperature to the 4th power.
A light bulb fillament is about 3000K and let us say has the size of 16 pin heads ( size is a guess ).
The surface of the sun is abouyt 6000K which is twice as hot so radiates 2^4=2*2*2*2=16 times as much energy so 1 pin head of solar surface radiates about the same as a lightbulb (being VERY approximate about the pin head bit). You can't feel a lightbulb from 100 miles away so you were told wrong.
On the lightning bolt bit the temperature may well be higher than the surface of the sun but the duration is tiny and it is probably an inefficient radiator ( look up black body radiation ).

Answer 4

You also have to remember that lightning is a stream of charged particles, not a solid object. So while the particles themselves may be at millions of degrees, there are so few of them that they actually emit very little infrared radiation (one source I found online lists the electron density at around 3 X 10^18 electrons per cm^3... with a mass of about 9.1 X 10 ^-28 grams, that's a density of 2.73 X 10^-10 g/cm^3.. not a whole lot of stuff). Whereas the sun is a much denser ball of hot gasses undergoing nuclear fusion (averages about 1.410 g/cm^3). There is therefore actually quite a bit of mass in a pinhead size sample of solar material, when compared to the subatomic particles streaming from earth to cloud or vice versa in a lightning strike. Same reason why you aren't instantly incinerated if you get hit by lightning: it's hot, and you'll get burnt, but there's so little mass that it cools very quickly (I am, of course, not going to mention the part about the electricity stopping all your motor functions... that part's obviously bad) Think of it this way: you've sat next to a campfire when some of the firewood popped and sent an ember flying toward you, right? The tiny little spark might feel warm when it hits your skin, but you don't instantly go up in flames, do you? And yet that little ember is around 500 F when it hits you. It just doesn't have enough mass to carry a really dangerous amount of heat energy, and it certainly doesn't radiate much.

Answer 5

It is the air within the lightning strike that heats up to 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (hotter than the sun's surface, as you said). But it is the air immediately at the point of the strike that is at this temperature, and disperses rapidly. You won't feel the heat of that air from a distance.

Regarding your question about a piece of the sun the size of a pinhead, I was unable to find a scientific reference that mentioned that - only a religious one saying that the heat from a piece of the sun the size of a pinhead was hotter than all the energy used in Creation...however hot that was.

Answer 6

Lightning exists for only a split second, and is not a constant source of heat. The sun is. SO the effect of lightning's heat is that of thunder only, while the sun has of course, far more causes n effects than lightning, and so we can feel it's heat many miles away. The sun is more powerful than all the lightning that ever struck on the earth combined.

Answer 7

Maybe it comes down to time, lightning only lasts a few fractions of a second, whereas the sun is burning all the time.If youre close enough to lightning you do get burnt.

Answer 8

heat is energy in transit. even if lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun it is not present for sufficient time to transfer enough energy to you to heat any part of you to anywhere near this temperature. anything metal which you are wearing when struck will, however be heated rapidly and will most likely cause severe burning to the surrounding area.

Answer 9

i dont think it is hotter than the sun, ive had a friend that was hit by lightning, if it was hotter than the sun she would have been nothing but ashes

Answer 10

Try being hit by it. It burns like a sonofagun.
Maybe its the rain that cools the air between you and the electically energized bolts.