Rainbow-Colored Shooting Stars May Fly Overhead Someday

The Japanese company ALE plans to create and release artificial meteors into space that emit colorful trails when they burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Normally, shooting stars form when particles in space — usually much smaller than an inch (just a few millimeters long) enter the atmosphere and burn brightly, in a process known as plasma emission. The company plans to launch a satellite carrying about 500 to 1,000 "source particles," which will become the artificial meteors.