Requested anonymouslyDuring Cinderace’s signature move, Pyro Ball, this soccer-playing rabbit

Requested anonymously

During Cinderace’s signature move, Pyro Ball, this soccer-playing rabbit picks up a pebble and turns it into a ball of flame, kicking it into its rivals for devastating damage.

Rocks may not seem flammable intuitively, but in reality, some of the biggest naturally occurring fireballs in our world have the same humble origin, as a small rock being blasted through the atmosphere. I’m talking about meteors.

Meteors, also known as shooting stars, are rocks from space that burn up as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. The rocks themselves are usually fragments that broke off of a comet or asteroid, with sizes ranging from the size of a grain of sand up to the size of a boulder, several meters in diameter. Very bright meteors are called fireballs, for somewhat obvious reasons. Here’s what they look like:

The top two images there are real meteors observed on Earth (the bottom two are artists depictions), large space rocks that crashed through the atmosphere. The reason that meteors become fireballs and burn up in the atmosphere is because of ram pressure. The rock pushes on and compresses all of the air in front of it, building up high pressure and creating a shockwave. Meteors often reach temperatures of over 3000 degrees Fahrennheit this way, which makes the rock glow brightly and actually ignites the air it travels through, creating the signature long streaks of fire through the sky.

Fireball meteors usually don’t survive longer than a few seconds - the rock literally vaporizes, burning up and breaking apart miles before it hits the ground. These rocks are fast,clocking in around a speed of 20 kilometers per second (or 45,000 mph). So that should give you an idea on how hard Cinderace can kick.