Scientists solve solar secret | HeritageDaily

The further we move away from a heat source, the cooler the air gets. Bizarrely, the same can’t be said for the Sun, but University of Otago scientists may have just explained a key part of why.

Study lead Dr Jonathan Squire, of the Department of Physics, says the surface of the Sun starts at 6000 degC, but over a short distance of only a few hundred kilometers, it suddenly heats up to more than a million degrees, becoming its atmosphere, or corona.

“This is so hot that the gas escapes the Sun’s gravity as ‘solar wind’, and flies into space, smashing into Earth and other…