Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to re: You asked

re: You asked
gbaikie — (archived)

"The effect has been noticed but because it happens in such a large area and at a rate that is difficult to measure it has been ignored. "

If a satellite were to run into a ton of air over a period of a year, it's going down. If a billion tonnes of air were leaving earth per year, it seems plausible without actual doing the math that a satellite would run into 1/billionth of it. But say that is a wrong, and it only runs into 1/trillionth of it, it still within a few years going to bring it down, and "we need" more than 10 billion tonnes. It's not even close to possible- that ISS or Hubble, or zillion other satellites fly is the evidence against it.

Why not find the density of air at 100 km above earth and figure out of much mass there is per cubic km?

"Yes, but in the process of disintegrating at a faster rate it also transfers kinetic energy to its surroundings at a faster rate."
So this energy warms a cooling pond.
The amount of energy is utterly insignificant. House fires or forest fires would easily generate more energy per year. It's comparable to the heat of all the hot tubs in America- and probably far less than heat of all the showers Americans take per year.

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