[meteorite-list] What makes a meteor glow?

[Mexicodoug]

Nice find Göran, that is definitely the first half and refreshing to 
know ... next I was wishing that along having the correct wavelengths 
(the spectrum of a meteoroid with a reasonable S/N ratio and an 
encompassing energy range) ... that it is attached to a guru who can 
draw us the blackbody curve in it, integrate that energy, and then 
deconvolute the emission lines all in the same spectrum ... and compare 
both energies for us on a silver platter ;-) Maybe you or someone is up 
to it ;-) Do you think that be the sort of analysis would be necessary 
to give a quantifiable answer to Bob's question for a specific event?

Kindest wishes
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Göran Axelsson <axelsson at acc.umu.se>
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Tue, Jun 29, 2010 6:33 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What makes a meteor glow?


There exists a lot of spectras of meteors. Data have been recorded by 
satellite and high altitude air crafts. I found this article after 20s 
of searching. 
 
Too bad I can't get to the full article... it costs $37.95. 
 
:-( 
 
/Göran 
 
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AdSpR..33.1455C 
 
Leonid meteor spectrum from 110 to 860 nm 
 
References and further reading may be available for this article. To 
view references and further reading you must purchase this article. 
 
J. F. CarbaryCorresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The 
Corresponding Author, D. Morrison, G. J. Romick1 and J. -H. Yee 
 
Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, 
USA 
Received 29 July 2002; 
revised 2 October 2002. 
Available online 4 February 2003. 
 
Abstract 
 
During the Leonid meteor shower on 18 November 1999, the five 
spectrographic imagers onboard the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) 
satellite recorded the first complete meteor spectra from 110 to 860 
nm. The observation occurred at 00:23:36.2 UT, at which time the 
satellite was pointed at a tangent altitude of 100 km over 37.2°N and 
78.2°E. The spectrograph slits were oriented approximately parallel to 
the horizon at a tangent altitude of 100 km, and the meteor passed 
approximately perpendicular through the slits’ fields of view. All five 
spectrographic imagers observed the passage of a bright object (mv < 
−2.8 at 100 km) and each recorded several frames of data. In the 
visible, common meteor emissions were observed from iron, sodium, and 
oxygen. However, the ultraviolet spectrum displayed a wealth of more 
intense features, some of which actually caused saturation in the 
spectrographs. The most intense features appeared between 220 and 300 
nm and are attributed to neutral and singly ionized iron and ionized 
magnesium. Some unknown emissions, possibly from an unidentified 
molecular species such as iron oxide, appear between 180 and 220 nm. In 
the far ultraviolet from 110 to 130 nm, oxygen and nitrogen features 
appear in the spectrum, with some features from ionized iron and 
magnesium. In particular, the FUV spectrum showed an intense emission 
 from hydrogen Lyman alpha and a much weaker emission from what appeared 
to be neutral carbon. The atmospheric emissions can be associated with 
the heating within the meteor shock, while the metallic emissions 
originate from the fireball of the meteor proper. The ultraviolet 
emissions were much stronger than those in the visible and 
near-infrared parts of the spectrum. The energy of emissions in the 
ultraviolet (110 < λ < 337 nm) exceeded the energy of the visible (337 
< λ < 650 nm) by a factor of at least 5. 
 
 
Mexicodoug wrote: 
> Bob wrote: 
> "how much an incoming meteor's light is due to heating of the 
material > itself versus the recombination of ionized atoms " 
> 
> Hi Bob, List, 
 
... snip 8< .... 
 
> What would be most interesting would be the posting of a total light 
 > spectrum of a meteoroid that was incredibly imaged with the discrete 
 > transition lines labeled for the popular ionic transitions and the > 
background black body sketched together in the same graph. Perhaps the 
 > exact answer in such a given case to Bob's question lies in the > 
comparison of the area under the curve (lines vs. black body) of such > 
a spectrum assuming it exists... 
> 
> Kindest wishes, 
> Doug 
 
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