AstronomyYes, the sun is hot—really hot. It's 16 million kelvin at its fusion-fueled core, cooling, as the second law of thermodynamics requires, to a still-blistering 5780 K at its visible surface. But for the better part of a century, solar physicists have been mystified by the sun's ability to reheat its corona, the encircling wispy crown of light that emerges from the glare during a total
... [Show full abstract] solar eclipse. There, temperatures again soar to 1 million K and more. How would heat dissipating from the core out beyond the surface abruptly punch temperatures up by a factor of 200 and more?