[meteorite-list] Re Cu meteorite

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:22:44 -0600
Message-ID: <002301c8e4b0$e43e14f0$0a01a8c0_at_bellatrix>

Many fireballs, especially slow ones, show strongly green. This has nothing
to do with the composition of the body, however (meteor colors in general
are not strongly related to composition). The green color is the 558nm
forbidden oxygen line. Slower meteors are not as hot, so their intrinsic
thermal (blackbody) radiation is less likely to swamp out the atmospheric
emission.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Bowling" <minador at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2008 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Re Cu meteorite


> I've seen a few green fireballs/bolides over the years. The flame test of
> copper is green so I've always wondered about this subject myself.
> Geologic
> processes have produced relatively huge masses of copper in the earth, and
> I
> don't see why that cannot occur elsewhere in the solar system. But I'm
> just
> a biased copper miner... ;-) Something like that would be quite rare, but
> possible I think.
Received on Sun 13 Jul 2008 02:22:44 AM PDT