I just read that meteors range in size from a small pebble down to a grain of sand, and that when we see them across the night’s sky (there’s a meteor shower due tonight) they’re between 50-75 miles above us. So how the hell does something so tiny make such a large, bright streak of light when it burns up?
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It is burning super extra mega hot, which releases a lot of light. They streak through the atmosphere at many tens of thousands of miles per hour, compressing the air ahead of them so much that the air itself glows. It’s not so much the particle itself burning up as the air in front of it getting mega hot.
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