Chemicals Glow as a Meteor Disintegrates

Explanation: Meteors can be colorful. While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can. Pictured here is a fireball , a disintegrating meteor that was not only one of the brightest the photographer has ever seen , but colorful. The meteor was captured by chance in mid-July with a camera set up on Hochkar Mountain in Austria to photograph the central band of our Milky Way galaxy . The radiant grit , likely cast off by a comet or asteroid long ago, had the misfortune to enter Earth's atmosphere . Colors in meteors usually originate from ionized chemical elements released as the meteor disintegrates, with blue-green typically originating from magnesium , calcium radiating violet, and nickel glowing green. Red, however, typically originates from energized nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. This bright meteor ic fireball was gone in a flash -- less than a second -- but it left a wind-blown ionization trail that remained visible for almost a minute.