[meteorite-list] Re Cu meteorite

[Mark Bowling]

Thanks Chris,

I've wondered about this a long time, but have been unsuccessful in finding an explanation.

Mark

--- On Sat, 7/12/08, Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

> From: Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Re Cu meteorite
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Saturday, July 12, 2008, 11:22 PM
> 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.