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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Because it’s moving fast enough to still have a ton of energy, and that energy is released over a very short time period.
A 1g meteor impacting at 30km/s will have 450kJ of kinetic energy, if that energy is converted to heat in less than a second, you’re going to have light intensity similar to a 450,000W incandescent light bulb. Even air will glow when you heat it enough.
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