Unveiling the Enigmatic Green Ghosts: Astronomers Capture Spectroscopic Data for the First Time

Astronomers have successfully captured spectroscopic data from a mesospheric green ghost for the first time. These green ghosts, which appear during thunderstorms as a greenish glow on top of transient luminous events (TLEs), were previously speculated to be excited oxygen atoms. However, the researchers found evidence of nickel, iron, nitrogen, and oxygen in the green ghost, suggesting that it resulted from meteoric ablation of interplanetary dust particles moving through the atmosphere at high speed. The team's years-long effort to capture this data sheds light on the nature of atmospheric green ghosts.