The Spectrum of A Meteor
Explanation:
Chasing the brief
flash of a meteor trail across
the sky with a very large telescope is a nearly impossible task.
But on May 12, 2002,
astronomers got lucky,
as a bright meteor chanced across the narrow slit of their
spectrograph at the
Paranal Observatory.
At the time, the spectrograph was being used to
study the light from
a supernova, separating and recording the many
near-infrared emission lines produced by atoms
in the distant stellar explosion.
Below this artistic montage of a meteor streak and
Very Large Telescope
units at Paranal,
panel a shows the
resulting spectrum of both the supernova and the May 12 meteor combined.
Panel b shows the emission spectrum of the meteor alone, after
subtracting away the supernova and background contributions.
The meteor emission is due to colliding oxygen and nitrogen atoms
and molecules in the
superheated air along
the
glowing trail
at an altitude of about 100 kilometers.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
