How do we know that the solar corona is hot?

Answer 1

Some of the light from the sun comes from the electron orbital transitions - an electron jumps down to a lower orbital, and emits a photon at the energy of the transition - like a ball falling down the stairs. With me so far?

Some isotopes of elements, like certain types of Iron, emit very specific wavelengths of light - like 171 Angstroms, or 195 Angstroms. When we see light at these wavelengths - either in a spectrum or from a very narrow-band filter - then we know we are looking at a very particular transition in an atom. However, the electron first had to get up to the higher energy level - it had to be carried up the stairs - and that's where the heat part comes in.

Heat is basically just vibrations, and lots of heat corresponds to lots of particles moving around quickly, bumping into others and knocking them into higher energy states. These certain electrons can't get up to the higher energy levels without a lot of heat around. And thanks to quantum mechanics and laboratory experiments, we know that the corona has to be at least a million degrees Kelvin for these electrons to have gotten up to the higher energy states to begin with, so they could then drop back down and emit those specific photons of light.

Check out the SOHO and TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer) websites for more info and cool pictures.

Answer 2

Try lying out by the pool on a nice summer day for a couple of hours. The required common-sense understanding will impose itself on you.

Answer 3

people make something like that up and then spend their whole life, just talking to people they meet on the street to see if they can get theire idea,to see if any combonation, makes any sence,
if it doesnt look ,hot,, then the heat is just in the same place, so i guess we dont know,

but if you can add heat to it, then you must be able to tell just by looking at irt

but any time people play with the broad range of ideas we all knoit has to be wrong,

but people can show alot about them selves , just by behaving like they dont
belive any one alive is or can uderstand all tjose questions

just like a person is supposed to be run by their objects just because they let it happenm, and no one else who they now is any diffent than them

Answer 4

Dude.... the Sun is a BURNING ball of gas. Use your common sense.