Flash-heating the air channel to roughly 30,000 °C in microseconds causes explosive thermal expansion, generating the supersonic shockwave we hear as thunder.
While the Sun’s photosphere glows near 5,500 °C, a lightning channel carries tens of thousands of amperes through thin air, superheating molecules into a luminous plasma column reaching ~30,000 °C.
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Quick Guess: Roughly how many thousand °C does a lightning bolt heat the surrounding air?
Verified Answer: 30 k °Cs
Quiz Question: Roughly how many thousand °C does a lightning bolt heat the surrounding air?
Correct Answer: 30 k °Cs
While the Sun’s photosphere glows near 5,500 °C, a lightning channel carries tens of thousands of amperes through thin air, superheating molecules into a luminous plasma column reaching ~30,000 °C.
By encoding binary 0s and 1s into synthetic A, C, G, and T DNA bases, a single gram of nucleic acid can theoretically store ~215 petabytes for millennia without power.
At a precise combination of temperature and low pressure known as the 'triple point,' water exists simultaneously as ice, liquid, and vapor.
Below 2.17 Kelvin, liquid helium-4 enters a zero-viscosity quantum phase and forms a microscopic Rollin film that creeps upward over beaker walls.
According to Einstein's general relativity, weaker gravity at higher altitudes causes clocks to tick faster by billionths of a second.