when space craft “burn up” in the atmosphere and vaporize, where do all the tons of metal go?
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They turn into vapor which is a gas like cloud that you can’t see. The vapor pieces more than likely attach to clouds and come back down in the form of liquid rain.
A lot of things exist in three states, solid, liquid, and gas. Transitioning between these states as the temperatures go higher. Water goes from ice, to liquid, to gas as the temperature increases. So does iron, aluminum, . . . , etc. When a space crat “burns” up, it’s just the material turning into a liquid or a gas and being dispersed. The tons of metal just turn into tons of gas or liquid.
They cool, turn back into solid metal atoms, and settle down to the surface. Some of them oxidize, and become metal oxide molecules. Essentially the same thing.
The metal most certainly does not stay as metal vapor, as others have suggested. It may very well vaporize but it quickly combines with the oxygen in the atmosphere to become various metal oxides.
The metals are going to be liquified or even turn gaseous. They will likely bind with oxygen in the atmosphere and become an oxide. Aluminum oxide, etc.
The atomized material will oxidize and fall in the ocean where fish lives and you will end up eating fish with a negligible amount of spacecraft in it,
Not enough to make the fish any more toxic than normal polluted fish. But hey you eating spacecrafts!!!
As it burns, the spaceship turns into smoke particles. These particles will generally slowly settle back down to earth as dust. Most of the metals will turn into metal oxide atoms (burn and combine with oxygen). Other parts of the spaceship such as carbon fiber or plastic may turn into a gas like CO2 instead of dust.
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