Protect your photos, music and documents and access to them anywhere with Mosey by e m C the most trusted name and cloud backup and now save ten percent with promo code. Brain Stuff at mosey dot com gets started today at m o z y dot com. Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff works dot com where smart happens. Hi, Am marciall Brain with today's question. Meteors burn up when they hit the atmosphere. Why doesn't the space shuttle burn up? When a small meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere, it goes
from traveling through a vacuum to traveling through air. Traveling through a vacuum is effortless, it takes no energy at all, but traveling through air is a completely different story. A meteor moving through the vacuum space typically travels at speeds reaching tens of thousands of miles per hour. When the meteor hits our atmosphere, the air in front of it compressed is incredibly quickly. When a gas is compressed, its temperature rises. This causes the meteor to heat up so
much that it glows. The air burns the meteor until there is nothing left. Re Entry temperatures can reach as high as three thousand degrees fahrenheit. Obviously, it would not be good for a spacecraft to burn up when it re enters the atmosphere. Two technologies are used to allow spacecraft to re enter. One is called a blade of technology and the other is called insulating tile technology. In a blade of technology, the surface of the heat shield
melts and vaporizes. In the process, the vapor carries away a heat. This is the technology that protected the Apollo spacecraft. The space shuttles are protected by special silica tiles. Silica or s I O two is an incredible insulator. It's possible to hold a space shuttle tile by the edge and then heat up the center of the tile with a blowtorch. The tile insulates so well that no heat
makes it to the outer edges. These tiles insulate so well on the space shuttle that they keep the heat of reentry from ever reaching the body of the spacecraft. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works, dot Com, your photos, music and documents are irreplaceable. Protect them with mosey by e m C, the most trusted name and cloud back up. Back up your files today and save ten percent with promo code brain stuff at mosey dot com, m o z y dot com