Bright green meteors appear to be raining in New Zealand

A bombing of meteorites touches the New Zealand. This came after a huge meteor exploded over the sea near Wellington on July 7. There was a sonic boom and after two weeks a smaller fireball was caught over Canterbury. Astronomers and citizens work together to recover fallen meteorites. The special thing is that they are of one color Bright green similar to that of auroras.

The meteors announce the arrival of a piece asteroid of nickel and iron which then hit the atmosphere at a speed of 60 km per second. As a result, heat is released very quickly, so that the iron and nickel give a green light. Is it the same bright green as the aurora? The answer is not so simple. The green light of the aurora is caused by: oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere. They are created by collisions between oxygen molecules in the air and particles eliminated by the sun.

The oxygen ions recombine with electrons to make oxygen atoms. Electrons can remain in the excitation phase for several seconds. In this phase there is a “forbidden” transition with which they emit aurora green light at a wavelength of 557 nm. Here’s that, compared to an aurora, the meteor can shine like that, but only if it’s really fast. Very fast meteors heat up more than 100 km where the auroras stop.

For the recovery of fallen meteorites, an effort was made to sensitize citizen scientists to build meteoric cameras to immortalize such events. They allow you not only to find the rock, but also to know from which part of the solar system the meteorite came. Meteoric cameras populate the Tagus and the South Island, the North Island has yet to be completed.