cosmicmonk
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Hey guys! Can anyone tell me how to calculate the force of air friction on meteor that's going to impact
Calculating Air Friction on Meteor Impacting Earth
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This is actually a very difficult and effectively impossible problem to solve generally. You could make some assumptions to make it more tractable, though. For example assume the meterorite is spherical and smooth.
You'd also have a dramatically different answer depending on the speed and altitude and there is also the complcation that the surface will ablate, so the meteorite is changing size as it descends, plus the products of that ablation affect the problem. You'd have to assume that chemistry is negligible in order to solve this without a supercomputer.
Finally, you have to learn a thing or two about drag as a whole first. Drag has three main components at that speed: form drag (due to pressure differences in front and behind), wave drag (due to supersonic flow), and viscous drag (friction). Viscous drag is quite possibly the smallest component in most cases like this. Is viscous drag really the only part you care about?
In other words, this is a remarkably complex and rich problem and it doesn't really admit a simple answer.
You'd also have a dramatically different answer depending on the speed and altitude and there is also the complcation that the surface will ablate, so the meteorite is changing size as it descends, plus the products of that ablation affect the problem. You'd have to assume that chemistry is negligible in order to solve this without a supercomputer.
Finally, you have to learn a thing or two about drag as a whole first. Drag has three main components at that speed: form drag (due to pressure differences in front and behind), wave drag (due to supersonic flow), and viscous drag (friction). Viscous drag is quite possibly the smallest component in most cases like this. Is viscous drag really the only part you care about?
In other words, this is a remarkably complex and rich problem and it doesn't really admit a simple answer.
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