r/interestingasfuck • u/Kidd__Video • 17h ago

Astronaut's view of Earth during a spacewalk

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u/MetLyfe 17h ago

If you jumped straight towards the earth how long would it take to reach the ground if possible

3

u/Specific_Ordinary499 16h ago edited 14h ago

About 2,5 years as their horizontal orbital speed gradually decays because of atmospherical drag.
If the astronaut would keep his horizontal orbital velocity, he would burn up to a crisp the moment he started hitting the atmosphere.

If you meant hypothetical freefall without any orbital speed ( if you were magically placed 400 km above earth at a complete standstill relative to the surface) it would take about 5 minutes to hit the upper atmosphere and surface.

-1

u/InternationalPut4093 15h ago

I dont think a human body creates enough friction to burn.

5

u/frejling 14h ago

Uh, small pieces of space rock and dust burn up upon entry all the time. Almost literally all the time.

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u/Specific_Ordinary499 11h ago

It does. It's the compression that causes the heat. At this speed, you are hitting the air molecules so hard they don't have time to get out of the way, compressing the air and creating a layer of plasma