Stovetop, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

The friction (and resulting heat) I am assuming would come from wind resistance. Think along similar lines to this classic XKCD article.

650 miles per second, as Malkovich said in the skit, translates to about 2.3 million miles per hour, or about 3.8 million kilometers per hour for the more mathematically reasonable among us out there.

A much lighter meteor traveling much slower than that through the atmosphere is enough to generate the heat needed for combustion, so it would probably apply to Santa in this hypothetical scenario, too.