Spacecraft reentry is one of those events in spaceflights which should scare astronauts the most. Imagine a massive metallic object slamming into the Earth's atmosphere faster than the speed of sound. The air molecules push against the spacecraft, heating it up over 1,600 degrees Celsius and causing the capsule to get shrouded in a blanket of plasma.

At that moment, there's one thing saving the astronauts from a painful end - the metallic enclosure between them and the plasma blanket or as many would agree, the incredible engineering.

Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who is currently training for her next space mission in 2025, touched upon this engineering aspect which enables a spacecraft to endure temperatures one-fifth the surface of the Sun. To the onlookers on ground, the spacecraft will look like a shooting star at night. The excess heating even causes its exterior to char.

"Earth's atmosphere doesn't seem like much of a barrier, but during re-entry when traveling more than 17,000 mph, our vehicle heats up to more than 3000-degrees F," Whitson wrote in a post on X.

"Those very high temperatures break up the chemical bonds of the air, forming a cloud of plasma around the vehicle. Lucky for us, wicked smart engineers have designed the heat shields to withstand those temperatures!" she further said.

Whitson has the most number of stays in space (665 days) as a female astronaut in three trips she has made to the International Space Station (ISS). She is currently preparing for her fifth flight as part of the Axiom-4 mission in 2025. Her fourth was for Axiom Space's private mission in 2023.

ALSO SEE: Polaris Dawn Astronaut Shares Video Of Epic Reentry After 5-Day Mission; Watch

The heatshield here is one of the most important life saving components on a spacecraft. Heatshields are also used in uncrewed probes like the Parker Solar Probe allowing it to endure temperatures as high as 1,377 degrees Celsius.

Reentry is extremely risky business and it's the reason what caused the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of 2002. The tragedy occurred when the spacecraft was reentering the atmosphere with seven NASA astronauts. India's Kalpana Chawla was one of the crew members. Investigations revealed that a 'foam strike' anomaly left a hole on the left wing of the Shuttle which allowed atmospheric gases to enter inside during reentry.

More recently, NASA decided to ditch Boeing Space's Starliner spacecraft to bring astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore from the space station. The spacecraft experienced helium leaks and thruster issues which could have threatened the lives of the crew during the return.

ALSO SEE: Starship's Dazzling Reentry Captured By Cameras Before Being Cooked; Elon Musk Shares Pics

(Image: Axiom Space/NASA)