How hot is it when objects re-enter the earth atmosphere?

Question

Example a space shuttle and i also want to know how hot is it for the meteoroid to melt...

Answer 1

The temperature is so hot it is better to measure it in Kelvins.  The temperature then would reach a peak of 7800º K.

EDIT: I calculated the temperature into Fahrenheit and Celsius.  

The Fahrenheit temperature is 14,039,540.6º F

The Celsius temperature is 7,799,727º C

The reason spacecraft aren't utterly destroyed upon re-entry is because of the design and the angle they enter.  In simple terms, the more drag you have, the less the air around you can move and get out of the way.  Therefore, there is a small cushion of air that blocks the heat from coming in contact directly.

And for meteors.  Meteors don't really melt, they just break apart into smaller and smaller pieces, until they are nothing more than dust.

Hope this helped.

Answer 2

The temperature is directly related to an object's speed.  A rock falling in at 30,000 MPH will evaporate MUCH faster than one falling in at 3000 MPH.  The shuttle, when it re-enters, is moving about 17,000 MPH, and it has to bleed off all that speed - through friction.  

An object in motion has "kinetic energy", the formula is 1/2 MV**2.  Or, 1/2 times the Mass times the square of the velocity.  The shuttle, a heavy object, moving at 17000 MPH, has a *lot* of kinetic energy, and so generates a *lot* of heat on it's return. The heat it generates is just about equal to the energy of it's speed. Parts of the shuttle exceed 3000 degrees F - the leading edges of the wings, and the nose, when re-entering.  When Columbia broke up a few years back, it was due to a fracture in the leading edge of it's left wing - allowing this intense heat inside the wing, literally melting the components and structure within.  

The "shooting stars" you see are routinely moving faster than the shuttle - more like about 20,000 - 30,000 MPH - when they enter the atmosphere.  And, luckily, most are small - about the size of a grain of sand.  This intense heat of friction doesn't just melt the small rock - it vaporizes it.  Larger rocks can make it all the way to the ground, but all will have some of their material burned away - or, in some cases, the sudden heat will make the rock (or block of ice) explode in the atmosphere - as what happened in Siberia in 1908, creating huge blast that flattened hundreds of square miles of forest.  

Answer 3

Thousands of degrees Celsius!

Answer 4

thousands upon thousands of degrees.... very reminiscent of the surface of the sun...  

Answer 5

The object behaves depending on the angle (with the perpndicular) as well as on its speed. There is less probobility for this angle to be less or near zero but tending towards 90d. Any grazing angle it bounces off like a stone thrown at grazing angle at water surface of a pond, where the stone bounces off several times before plunging in the water. This might happen in successive denser (than the previous) layers.  

Like this the object loses much energy (tangential component); yet its speed and higher friction of a denser layer below is sufficient to ignite at temperatures above 5000 Kelvin (we prefer Kelvin scale for scientific purposes).