Monster Waves Behind Sun’s Coronal Heating Mystery? The first question solar physicists are usually faced with when talking about the coronal heating problem is: "The sun's hot! Why are you surprised that its atmosphere is hot too?" It's not that the corona is hot that surprises solar astronomers, it's the fact that whereas the solar "surface" (the photosphere) is known to be a few thousand degrees Kelvin (or Celsius), the tenuous atmosphere just above has been measured in themillions of degrees Kelvin. An analogy of this would be the air surrounding a light bulb being hotter than the light bulb's surface. It would actually get hotter as you moved your hand away from the bulb! That wouldn't make much sense, and the fact that the sun's atmosphere is hotter than the solar surface suggests something very weird is going on. The heat of the great star fills our lungs with life, keeps us frothing with stories written by mortals, those who put...
(The Weaver's Song)