So, to my knowledge, things burn up when entering the atmosphere due to the friction caused by all of the air molecules hitting them on the way down which would make sense when an object gets faster, it hits more air molecules, and heats up, however, when an object reaches terminal velocity it no longer goes any faster, and objects that aren’t aerodynamic have a relatively low terminal velocity, meaning it may go just as fast being dropped from a tall building, and obviously, things don’t burn up (or even get hot) when being dropped from a tall building. So my question is why exactly being something falling into the atmosphere will burn up, but not if it’s dropped at a much lower height that would still reach it’s terminal velocity.
In: Physics
If your car is going 60mph and you hit a block of jell-o in the road your car is still going to crash before going through it.
An object entering the atmosphere is going faster than terminal velocity and the atmosphere is trying to slow it down to that speed, the friction between the air and the object is what causes the burning.
Latest Answers