[meteorite-list] Different colors of meteors/shooting stars

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 08:07:46 -0600
Message-ID: <522F27B2.80501_at_alumni.caltech.edu>

Hi Jim-

As a rule, you can't tell much about a meteor's composition from the
visual colors observed. The eye is a lousy spectrometer!

The optical output of a meteor consists of hundreds of component
emission lines, possibly a blackbody component in some cases, and some
strong atmospheric emission lines. The visual effect is something close
to white, sometimes with a color cast provided mainly by atmospheric
ionization. While there are a handful of strong emission lines commonly
observed in spectra, these are very narrow and therefore represent only
a small part of the total luminous energy, which means they don't have
much effect on the color ("color" being a physiological phenomenon, not
a physical one).

This isn't to say there might not be some cases where meteoroid
composition is reflected in the color, but you can't make any
generalizations.

Chris

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

On 9/9/2013 10:38 PM, James Masny wrote:
> Good evening list. Sorry if this has been discussed before, but are
> different colors of meteors streaking through the atmosphere
> indicative of certain minerals burning up? And what color represents
> what minerals? I remember the 2001 Leonids, and seeing so many
> different colors - pink, blue, white, yellow, green, orange. The
> other night, I was outside, and I caught 2 fireballs, 1 changed color
> from yellow to red, another from white to yellow.
>
> All the best
> Jim
Received on Tue 10 Sep 2013 10:07:46 AM PDT