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That was the previous idea, but this work changes that. It implies that the cooling rates of meteors is actually much faster than previously guessed.

other than friction or the sun adding heat, why would they assume that it would take so long for it to cool down?

I assume it's because there's only so much of that heat that the globs could radiate into space as (infrared) light.

Maybe someone familiar with the intimate details of blackbody radiation could chime in here?