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
Well things can fall a lot faster without atmosphere, like in space.
If things go fast they heat when rubbing into other things, regardless if its air, or you swipiing your hand very fast on the couch.
As you said things have a terminal velocity aka. maximum speed when falling in air, this speed tends to be lower, than what needed to heat the thing up enough to make it catch fire.
Except if its falling in space – and outside the air – it can accelerate to much higher speeds, and when it crashes into the air, it will heat up enough to burn up.
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