why do asteroids burn?

Answer 1

An asteroid will burn as it hits our atmosphere for the same reason the Shuttle gets incredibly hot when re-entering the atmosphere, and why we lost a shuttle when the heat shield came apart.

But meteors and asteroids are travelling at many times the speed of the shuttle - anything from 11 kms/sec to 70 kms/sec. Therefore its kinetic energy is enormous, such that a 10 tonne meteoroid enetering the atmosphere at 30 km/sec will generate almost as much energy when it explodes as a small nuclear weapon.

A 10 Km wide asteroid, like the one that supposedly destroyed the dinosaurs and many other species, would produce energy equivalent to many thousands of large nuclear weapons. Thanfully, they are rare.

Answer 2

Asteroids are big rocks out in space that sit there. They do not burn. You may be thinking of meteors when they fall ot a planet or comets with their tails from the solar wind that melts the ice off the comets and makes the tail. Other than that nothing ever burns in space. No air for the fire.

Answer 3

Asteroids don't burn. They orbit the sun. Meteors get very hot and vaporize or melt because as they enter the earth's atmosphere at very high speeds, they compress the air in front of them and cause heat. Yes, it's compression and not friction.

Answer 4

i think you are talking about objects entering planetary atmospheres, depending on the angle of entry they can burn up, as they interact with the atmosphere