what is hotter: the surface of the sun or the heat from a lightning?
339971
"A bolt of lightning can reach temperatures approaching 28,000 kelvins (50,000 degrees Fahrenheit) in a split second. This is about five times hotter than the surface of the sun."  The core of the sun reaches 13.6 MK (about 500 times the temperature reached by lightning).
659604
Heat energy from the sun travels through radiation, as opposed to convection and conduction.
813508
The temperature of the sun varies depending on proximity to the surface.  The core temperature can be more than 13 million degrees Celcius.  The corona is only about 5 million degrees Celcius.  As a large ball of plasma fusing gases together, the sun does not have an atmosphere in the usual sense of the word.
1081702
When cold dry air from the North, meet warm moist air from the south...\n\nThunder (which is the sound) comes from lightning (which is the flash).\n\nLightning is extremely hot (4 times the temp of surface of sun) it heat the air around it.  \n\nThe heating causing the air to expand (remember PV=nRT) the rapid expansion causes a pressure wave (remember PV=nRT sorry I had to).  \n\nThat pressure wave (sound is a pressure wave) is so intense we hear the "boom" when the pressure wave hits us.
270266
Lightning can be any color. It is reflected off things that are near it, so it could be any color.
224271
Hello,\nLightening is caused due to the build up of electrons in the upper layers of the clouds during a storm. These electrons are attracted towards the positive potential of the earth, but the air gives a stiff resistance and does not allow the electricity to pass through. But when a huge potential has been accumulated, the electricity forces its way through the air molecules. This causes a lot of friction and hence releases heat energy. A tremendous amount of heat energy. This causes the air molecules to vibrate and this produces the cracking sound known as thunder. Thunder rattles the windows if it is loud enough. Sound is just the air particles vibrating and when the vibrating air molecules hit the window, they cause it to rattle. Lightning usually strikes the highest point and the most positively charged area. This is becuz lightning looks for the easiest way out of air. A high place means it has to travel less distance...
124587
I am going to take a guess and say the moon.\n\nNo, I am kidding, it's the Sun\n\nSolar energy can be converted in to electricity and heat.
1035134
The Atmosphere is hot(~~)
575202
heat is a form of energy.
425553
I agree. The one when youre not involved. It's more hotter for many reasons.
375503
Space.  No kidding.  Sprites and Elves show us that the energy is coming from way up in the ionosphere, which is the outer boundary of the Earth's electric field.  Unfortunately, all the scientists we have nowadays are stupid or the satellites have been hijacked by someone who doesn't want us to know what causes lightning. Either way, it's not official yet.  But with all the crazy weather we've been getting nowadays and with all the awesome thunderstorms that cause hundreds of thousands of cloud to ground strikes, it shouldn't be too long before somebody realizes all this energy has to be coming from somewhere other than the clouds themselves.
475577
You would surmise, that since the sun is the source of the heat for the\nearth and atmosphere, that the atmosphere should be warmer at points closer\nto the sun, like at the TOP of the atmosphere, instead of the reverse.\n\n   But the atmosphere is not warmed directly by the sun...it is warmed by the\nEARTH...!  Most of the energy from the sun arrives at the earth in the form\nof light energy, or short-wave energy. The atmosphere is transparent to\nshort-wave energy, and most of the solar energy reaches the surface of the\nearth, where it is absorbed. This energy warms the surface of the earth,\nwhich, in turn, warms the atmosphere with long-wave energy. The type of\nenergy radiated by a star primarily depends on the temperature. So the\nenergy from the sun arrives at the earth as short-wave (in the visible part\nof the spectrum) energy, and leaves the earth as long-wave (in the infra-red\npart of the spectrum) energy.\n\n   The atmosphere is not transparent to long-wave radiation, and absorbs the\nheat energy from the earth. That part of the atmosphere closest to the earth\ngets the most energy and is the warmest.\n\n   Because the sun is nearly overhead in the latitudes nearest the equator,\nthose locations receive more solar energy per unit area, and become warmer\nthan those locations near the poles. This difference in the amount of energy\nreceived and subsequent heating of the atmosphere and evaporation of water\nfrom the lakes and oceans, is what drives the "weather machine" on the\nearth.
380249
Burn evokes the idea that there is oxygen involved, and fire consuming carbon-based materials like wood. Not so. It is all at extremely high temperatures, and nothing solid or liquid would exist at those temperatures. \n\nThe reaction is nuclear fusion. Atoms of hydrogen (1 proton and 1 electron) (possibly its deuterium isotope with an extra neutron) or its tritium isotope (2 extra neutrons) fusing together to form atoms of helium (2 protons, 1 neutron, 2 electrons). Energy is released in the process in the form of heat and light, as mass is destroyed (Einstein's e = mc^2 equation).\n\nThe sun isn't larger than other stars. It is just nearer to us (8 light minutes away) than any other star is (Alpha Centauri is 4 light years away and is the nearest). So it LOOKS bigger. That doesn't mean it IS bigger.
580963
Hottest - The Sun\nCoolest - Deep Space
712667
The others set the problem up, but don't answer the question!? \n\nThe surface temperature answer for a star emitting twice the energy flux of the sun(Sol) is 6900 degrees K.
1139871
Strictly speaking, the sun does not burn. At least, not the way that, say, a wick on a candle does. The small fires we're all familiar with are created by a chemical reaction betweena fuel, such as oil or coal, and oxygen. The sun's writhing surface, on the other hand, is the result of a nuclear reaction that fuses hydrogen to form helium.
365203
Heat lightning or summer lightning\n\nHeat lightning (or, in the UK, "summer lightning") is nothing more than the faint flashes of lightning on the horizon from distant thunderstorms. Heat lightning was named because it often occurs on hot summer nights. Heat lightning can be an early warning sign that thunderstorms are approaching. In Florida, heat lightning is often seen out over the water at night, the remnants of storms that formed during the day along a seabreeze front coming in from the opposite coast.\n\nSome cases of "heat lightning" can be explained by the refraction of sound by bodies of air with different densities. An observer may see nearby lightning, but the sound from the discharge is refracted over his head by a change in the temperature, and therefore the density, of the air around him. As a result, the lightning discharge appears to be silent. [4]