Bright Green Meteors Seem to Be Raining Down on New Zealand, But Why?

New Zealand seems to be under a lot of meteorites. The sonic boom that could be heard across the South Island was caused by a huge meteorite that exploded above the sea in Wellington.

Fireballs New Zealand, a collaboration between astronomer and citizen scientists which aims to recover meteorites, has received a lot of questions. One of the most frequently asked questions is if the green is the same green produced by the Auroras.

There is a bright green object in the sky. The person is Greg Price.

There have been green fireballs in New Zealand. A chunk of an asteroid can be anywhere between a few centimeters to a meter in diameter when it crashes through the atmosphere.

Some of the asteroids have nickel and iron and they hit the atmosphere at high speeds. The iron and nickel emit a green light.

Is this the same as an Aurora? The answer is mostly no, but it isn't that simple.

The International Space Station has an Aurora Australis. The Wikimedia Commons has a CC BY-ND license.

The colors of a meteor trail

The green glow of the Aurora is caused by the creation of oxygen ion in the upper atmosphere.

The electrons can stay in an excited state for a long time. The energy transition known as "forbidden" is an energy transition that doesn't obey the usual quantum rules.

If it's fast, a meteorite can shine by this route. In the thin atmosphere above 100 km, there are very fast meteors.

If you want to see a green wake from a meteorite, watch out for the Perseid meteor shower, which will peak on August 13 in the southern hemisphere.

The comet Swift-Tuttle arrives at about 60 km per second. At the beginning of their path, there is a green wake behind them.

The pale yellow glow at the end of the trail was caused by the winds of the upper atmosphere twisting it.

This is caused by sodium atoms being excited.

The person is Greg Price.

Are we being bombarded by meteors?

In New Zealand, big, booming green meteorites and the dropping of meteorites aren't uncommon, but they are rare to recover. The recovery rate is being improved by Fireballs.

Four meteorites may have hit New Zealand. Citizen scientists are encouraged to build their own camera systems so they can watch the events.

We can pin down the meteor's position in the atmosphere by comparing its position in the sky to the images captured by multiple cameras.

A meteor is seen by a camera. Campbell Duncan is a NASA/CAMS New Zealand employee.

It helps us find the rock, but it also tells us what part of the solar system it comes from. If you want to sample the Solar System without having to launch a space mission, this is a good way to go.

Fireballs New Zealand and the international meteorite association.

High-resolution cameras help to calculate a meteorite's trajectory. The map shows the trajectory of the July 22 meteor, which was seen in the sky.

There are more than a dozen meteor cameras in the South Island. We're looking for more people in the North Island to build or buy a meteor camera and keep it pointing at the sky.

Next time a bright meteorite explodes over New Zealand, we might be able to pick it up and do some good science with it.

Many thanks to Jim Rowe of the UK Fireball Alliance and Greg Price who took pictures of the persistent train.

Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.