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
things going through atmosphere heating up because of friction is a misconception. Friction contribute very little to heating. main heating comes from compressed air. As object comes hurdling through atmosphere, is usually goes so fast that air in front of it cant get out of the way fast enough. So its being compressed. And if you compress air it would increase its temperature. Also in your example of things dropping from building you dropping it with zero start velocity, objects entering atmosphere usually start with velocity in km/s range.
Latest Answers