[meteorite-list] Re Cu meteorite

[Chris Peterson]

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.