Many people might think that tungsten has the highest melting point of any substance on our planet; however, that is not the case at all.
The light and heat emitted by the Sun every second far exceed our imagination. The average surface temperature of the Sun is about 5,500 degrees Celsius, while the temperature at its core can reach up to 15 million degrees Celsius.
In reality, we have yet to get close to the Sun, and we have never set foot on its surface. Therefore, this temperature data is estimated by analyzing the Sun’s radiation.
The surface temperature of the Sun is around 5,537 degrees Celsius, while the temperature inside the Sun’s core reaches about 15 million degrees Celsius.
On Earth, temperatures of 400 to 500 degrees Celsius are enough to ignite forests, temperatures over 1,500 degrees Celsius can melt steel, and temperatures at 5,500 degrees Celsius can melt nearly everything on our planet.
In general, nothing on Earth can withstand the high temperatures of the Sun’s surface. If Earth were to get too close to the Sun, the rocks on its surface would melt due to the high temperatures and turn into magma. Regardless of whether they are simple substances or compounds, any material that falls onto the Sun’s surface would instantly be transformed into plasma, with the original molecular and atomic forms no longer existing. In fact, the Sun is a massive sphere of plasma fire.
In the minds of many, the melting point of metals is very high, and tungsten is considered the substance with the highest melting point on our planet. However, the melting point of tungsten is only 3,410 degrees Celsius.
The temperature of the Sun can melt everything in the world. We boil water at around 100 degrees Celsius. Blacksmiths heat iron, with temperatures in the furnace exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius. The temperature of the Sun is much higher than that in the furnace.
However, tungsten is not the substance with the highest melting point on Earth; it is simply the elemental metal with the highest melting point. The non-metal element with the highest melting point on Earth is graphite, which can reach temperatures of up to 3,850 degrees Celsius, but this is still significantly lower than the temperature on the Sun’s surface.
The non-metal element with the highest melting point on Earth is graphite.
Currently, the substance with the highest melting point on Earth is a synthetic hafnium alloy – tetratantalum hafnium pentacarbide (Ta4HfC5), which has a melting point of up to 4,215 degrees Celsius. However, this is still about 1,000 degrees lower than the temperature on the Sun’s surface, and it cannot endure the extreme temperatures of the Sun.
Tantalum hafnium carbide is a refractory chemical compound with the general formula Taₓ Hfy-x Cy, which can be considered a solid solution of tantalum carbide and hafnium carbide.
Scientists estimate that the deeper we go into the Earth, the higher the temperature becomes, with temperatures in the Earth’s core even reaching 6,000 degrees Celsius, higher than the temperature on the surface of the Sun. But why does the iron core remain solid at such high temperatures?
The high temperature in the Earth’s core allows iron to remain solid due to pressure; the pressure in the Earth’s core is 3.5 million times greater than the atmospheric pressure at the surface. It is under such extreme conditions that a substance’s melting point undergoes significant changes.
However, it is a mistake to compare melting points in this way, as we typically refer to the melting points of substances under standard atmospheric pressure.
The temperature in the Earth’s core is even higher than the temperature on the surface of the Sun.
Scientists are currently researching small artificial suns in laboratories, where the temperatures required for reactions can reach up to 100 million degrees; so what materials are used to contain this miniature sun?
In fact, scientists “store” the nuclear fusion fuel of the small artificial sun using a strong magnetic field and a tokamak – a device that uses powerful magnetic fields to contain hot plasma in a toroidal shape. At temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees, matter exists in the form of plasma, and charged particles are influenced by the Lorentz force in the magnetic field, allowing them to be controlled by the magnetic field.
The Tokamak is a device that uses powerful magnetic fields to contain hot plasma in a toroidal shape. It is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being researched to produce energy through controlled nuclear fusion.
The Sun relies on nuclear fusion reactions to emit light and generate heat; research on small artificial suns is one step toward achieving controllable nuclear fusion to obtain nearly eternal energy. Due to the force that light can exert on matter, scientists have used lasers to fuse nuclear fuel.
Generally, what we call matter is composed of particles such as quarks, protons, and atoms. Broadly speaking, magnetic fields also belong to matter. Magnetic matter is invisible and intangible, but it does exist; it is an invisible substance that can withstand infinitely high temperatures.
The high temperature of the Sun primarily propagates through thermal radiation. Mirrors can reflect light; thus, a mirror with a 100% reflectivity and the ability to reflect electromagnetic waves across all ranges could theoretically provide complete thermal insulation. However, in reality, this is entirely impossible as no such mirror exists in the world.
