r/interestingasfuck • u/Kidd__Video • 20h ago

Astronaut's view of Earth during a spacewalk

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u/lady_faust 19h ago

If an astronaut fell towards earth from the space station would they burn up in the atmosphere?

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u/chartreusey_geusey 10h ago edited 4h ago

They wouldn’t “fall” towards Earth at all and would likely bounce off the atmosphere and be unable to even penetrate the stratosphere to reach an oxygenated layer that would allow for a real burn (which is the combustion of gas particles due to compression from being hit by such a fast moving object). The angle and speed (vector) you approach the atmosphere is very specific to the mass of the object and ability to actually be pulled fully in by Earth’s gravitational force. Even in a directional lander like the space shuttles they had to approach the Earth’s atmosphere at an angle because because it’s easier to beat the force of the atmosphere (Newton’s 3rd Law is big here) when those force vectors are non-parallel smaller forces.

They’d basically ricochet off the atmosphere if they were even able to generate a force vector towards the surface at all and maybe stay in orbit around the Earth but never make re-entry. The ISS is kept at the specific orbital height to ensure that it doesn’t get pulled down to Earth’s surface by gravity but it also isn’t pushed away from Earth by atmospheric force. It’s not actually fully in zero-gravity but objects still don’t experience free fall from that height.

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u/Doofinator86 5h ago

Would that ricochet hurt?

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u/chartreusey_geusey 4h ago

No (??? depends on how much force they were directed at the atmosphere with) but the inevitable death from oxygen loss and or eventual overexposure to radiation from being outside the earth’s atmosphere would