10 'Astounding' Science Facts That Aren't Very Astounding If You're A Pedant

5. Lightning Is About Three Times Hotter Than The Sun

Lightning can get pretty hot, but to imply it can hold a candle to the giant fusion reactor in the space that supplies the vast majority of all available energy on Earth seems a stretch. Lightning gets to 30,000 Kelvin and the sun gets up to 1.57 x 107 Kelvin. Oh, you meant it was 3 times hotter than the surface of the sun? Well excuse me, but that's like saying it's hotter than the surface of an oven. Also the surface of the sun is about 5000K constantly, not for the puny fraction of a second lightning sticks around for. Also, the energy that made the lightning came from the sun. Earth's basically got one input. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, dingus. Stop trying to beat the sun.