TIL that A lightning bolt is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. The charge carried by a bolt of lightning is so intense that it has a temperature of 30,000°C (54,000°F). (www.sciencefocus.com)

submitted 4 months ago by partybot@lemmy.ca to c/til@lemmy.ca

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[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

The charges do not have a temperature. It is the their smashing into air that causes the air to heat up. You could heat air up waaaaayyyy higher with electricity, many orders of magnitude hotter. At least onto the 100 millions of Kelvin. My understanding of physics stops somewhere around that point, but I do not see a reason why that should be the limit.

As a side note, the less you have of something, the more irrelevant temperature becomes. You get hit by atoms, electrons, nuclei and other particles that have temperatures well into the billions(!) of degrees/Kelvin.

[-] Dorkyd68@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

So how in the ever loving fuck can someone survive a strike???

Does the lighting not actually make contact and it's more like an arc of sorts?

[-] unmagical@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 months ago

If you put a single drop of boiling water in the palm of your hand you'll be fine. If you pour a cup of boiling water in the palm of your hand you might need to go to urgent care.

Lightning superheats the air around it, but not in a sustaining way. Given the speed of the discharge the heat of a strike isn't necessarily fatal.

There are indirect strikes where lightning hits near you and electricity flows back up through your body, but direct strikes can also be survived.

[-] Vilian@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago

Skin effect if I'm not wrong, and other effect that with more voltage, less of that voltage enter the object, so with a fucking strike only your outer layer of your skin get fucked, I watched this in a styropyro video so I don't remember exactly