Ablation of large meteors during radiative heating

Abstract

A problem in radiative gas dynamics concerning the removal of mass and the change in shape of a large cosmic body caused by heating due to the emission of the shock layer on entering the earth's atmosphere is solved. The equations of motion of an ablating body are calculated simultaneously with the determination of the aerodynamic forces and the radiative thermal fluxes. The spectral emission is treated in the diffusion approximation and under the assumption of a locally one-dimensional optically planar layer. The results of calculations for three natural cosmic objects belonging to different classes (stony and iron meteorites and a snow-ice comet body) are presented.