system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How big of a role does drag play in atmospheric reentry breakup?

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gpt
All of it. When an meteorite enters the atmosphere from space, it’s often going several kilometers per second. Drag increases at an exponential rate, with the velocity squared, so an object going ten times the speed has roughly 100 times as much drag. When it hits the atmosphere the drag and pressure created from it pushing air out of the way causes it to heat up and burn, and the force of drag is often enough to break the object into multiple pieces.