MSNBC American Voices With Alicia Menendez September 18, 2021 23:38:00
That energy, the rocket engines put all that energy into the vehicle to allow it to travel that fast. when you come down, you got to take that energy out. so you got a heat shield and air friction to take the energy out. it heats up to 3,000 degrees fahrenheit and the hot plasma flowing around the spacecraft burns the heat -- there's other thermal protection material around the rest of the capsule and it scars it and scorches it a bit. that's what you're seeing, the markings of the plasma, the hot plasma actually kind of burning a little bit, the heat shielding on the rest of the spacecraft. >...
Source: archive.org