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
Think water.
When you push down on water, it becomes compressed, right? Something similar happens with air. The compression from the pressure heats it up.
Meteorites are not, in any way, aerodynamic. If you dropped, say, a knife going point down, it wouldn’t burn up on entry (probably, haven’t tested it) because its so aerodynamic that it doesn’t ‘press’ down on air. But something larger that would, would heat up the air around it at such immense pressure that bam, you have friction.
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