What causes the meteoroid material and surrounding air to emit light during entry?
Answer
Ablation
The spectacular display of a shooting star is the result of ablation, which is the specific term for the process where friction due to extremely high velocity interaction with the atmosphere causes rapid heating and vaporization of the meteoroid's rock material. This intense thermal energy not only vaporizes the incoming object but also excites the surrounding air molecules. This excitation, where electrons in the gas atoms are boosted to higher energy levels, causes them to subsequently drop back down and release energy in the form of visible light across the spectrum. Ablation is the encompassing term for this simultaneous process of material loss and resulting light emission caused by atmospheric drag.
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