Question: Is the temperature of the Earth's core really hotter than the surface of the sun?

Kevin Motherway answered on 12 Nov 2014:

I use Celsius here and not Kelvin as when you’re talking huge temps the 273 degrees difference is irrelevant.

Yes bizarrely this may be true. Lets bear in mind that when scientist are doing this type of science its all guesses and extrapolation as we will never directly measure the earth core temp. We believe the core if Iron and Nickel and we now its dimensions from seismic surveys. so we know how much rock, mantle etc is above the core so you can work out what pressure its under. So off to the lab, gets some Iron and Nickel and put it under that pressure you’ve worked out. Hey presto you get a temp of about 6000 Celsius.

So what’s a good comparable temperature? Well the surface of the Sun turns out to have been estimated to be about just under 6,000 Celsius! so yes it appears to be hotter than the SURFACE of the Sun. But hold your horses the Atmosphere of the Sun or the Corona is actually about 1 to 2 MILLION degrees C which is way way hotter. How come the atmosphere of the sun is hotter than the surface ?

We don’t know yet… Over to you…the next generation of scientists!