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
Both dropped things and things falling into the atmoshere reach terminal velocity, the difference is that dropped things start from zero, and their speed goes up, until it reaches terminal velocity. Things falling into the atmosphere typically go much faster than their terminal velocity, and need to *slow down* in order to reach it. And things that go fast have a lot of kinetic energy, which will get converted to heat as they slow down to their terminal velocity.
Latest Answers