Some of the Hottest Facts In The Universe - 26/02/2007

Whether you want to impress a few people with your knowledge or just want something interesting to ponder over coffee, here’s some facts we’ve dug up from around the world about heat.
In presenting them, we make no judgements as to causes!

• Heat is non-mechanical energy in transit, associated with differences in temperature between a system and its surroundings or between parts of the same system.
• Water has the highest specific heat of any common substance. It heats up and cools down more slowly than almost anything else. 
•  At the core, the sun is 15 million degrees Celsius or 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.
• The past decade was the hottest of the past 150 years and perhaps the past millennium. The hottest 22 years on record have occurred since 1980, and 2005 was the hottest on record.
• The summer of 2003 was one of the hottest ever in Europe. In the UK, the highest temperature since records began in 1911 (37.9°C/ 100.2°F) was recorded at London's Heathrow airport on Sunday, August 10, 2003. This was surpassed later the same day at Gravesend, Kent, with a temperature of 38.1°C (100.6°F).
• Air temperatures above the entire frozen continent of Antarctica have risen three times faster than the rest of the world during the past 30 years.
• 40% of all heat lost in the average home makes its escape through the loft or walls.

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