One Hundred and Fifteen Years of Meteor Spectroscopy

Abstract

Early visual observations of meteor spectra were instigated by A.S. Herschel and, in the period 1866-1880, resulted in the recording of several hundred spectra and the correct identification of the lines of neutral sodium and magnesium. Some 60 meteor spectra were photographed from 1897 to 1940, which resulted in the identification of 9 neutral and 4 singly ionized atoms. Improved cameras and techniques after World War II, and in particular the use of closed-circuit television equipment recording on video tape, increased the data-bank of meteor spectra to several thousand and made possible the identification in these spectra of between 15 and 20 neutral atoms, 9 singly ionized atoms and 6 diatomic molecules. Reliable luminous efficiencies of the atoms and molecules radiating in the observed light of meteors are available in only a few cases. Where relative abundances of the elements have been calculated, these agree in general with those found by other techniques for interplanetary dust, and with abundances for the solar system as a whole.