🔥 Why Do Objects Burn When They Enter Earth’s Atmosphere?

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☄️ What are these objects?

• Most are meteoroids (small rocks from space)
• When they enter Earth’s atmosphere, we often call them meteors or shooting stars ⭐

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🌍 What happens when they enter the atmosphere?

1️⃣ They come in VERY fast

• Space rocks travel 20–70 km per second
• That’s much faster than airplanes ✈️

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2️⃣ They hit air particles

• Earth’s atmosphere has air (gases)
• The fast-moving object crashes into air molecules

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3️⃣ Air gets squashed and heated

• Air in front of the object gets compressed
• Compressed air becomes very hot 🔥

👉 This heat makes the object glow and burn

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4️⃣ The object starts to melt and break

• The surface melts
• Small pieces burn away
• Most objects completely burn up before reaching the ground

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🌠 Why do we see a bright streak?

• The glowing hot air and burning surface make a bright line of light
• That’s what we call a shooting star (not a real star!)

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🧠 Important to know

Objects don’t burn because of friction only
They burn mainly because air is compressed and heated

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🌟 What if it’s big?

• Small ones → burn up in the sky
• Big ones → some parts may reach Earth as meteorites 🪨

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📌 One-line summary

Objects burn in Earth’s atmosphere because they hit air at very high speed, heating the air and themselves until they glow and melt.

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