Is shuttle reentry really hotter than the surface of the sun? I find that insane!?

Question

Is shuttle reentry really hotter than the surface of the sun? I find that insane!?

Answer 1

see figure D8 near the bottom of this page...

http://www.columbiassacrifice.com/$D_tem...

so no.... but lightning is another story!!....

"A typical lightning stroke heats the air to

>about 50,000 degrees F, whereas the surface

>temperature of the Sun is only about 10,000

>degrees F."

>

>David Cook

>Argonne National Laboratory

Answer 2

i doubt it, it would be burnt to a crisp, or just ash, maybe not even

Answer 3

The surface of the Sun is quite cool, 'only' about 5,500 degrees .. (it's a LOT hotter on the inside :-) )

The Shuttle (during re-entry) is round the other way = hotter on the outside. Parts can exceed 3000 degrees (most do not reach 2000 degrees) .. so the comparison is wrong, the Shuttle (surface) does not exceed the temperature of the Sun (surface).

NB> Never believe what you read in the papers or hear on the 'news' = Journalists lie all the time - and always get anything to do with science wrong .. mostly they did 'media studies' at school and have NO grasp of ANYTHING 'scientific' ..

Answer 4

Yes the shuttle reentry is really hotter than the surface of the sun.

But the surface of the sun is not as hot as you think it is.   The inner Sun is the heat that your thinking of.... 30,000 K and such...

Answer 5

in my own understanding the sun's surface is hotter than the shuttle re entry... because they've said sun is like a ball of fire that have helium, dust particles and other particles that makes it very hot...

Answer 6

Thats a tricky one, could be and probably not,...the sun being a big ball of burning nuclear reactor has a grey area for a "surface" it's constantly radiating heat, but like the center of a flame will have a lower temp than the orange corona, the surface temperature of the space shuttles tiles could very well reach close to those temps that would be found witthin the sun. The average "surface" temp of the sun is aroun 6,000 degrees centigrade while the shuttle tiles used for protection are only rated for around 1200 degrees, so really, long story short. not really. someone has their facts mixed up.

Answer 7

where did you get that from? a hobo?