Artificial Meteor Shower
I'm a little off-topic (like a whole different direction!) but your post reminded me of this:
When I was a kid I thought it'd be cool if BB size particles were purposely dumped into the atmosphere to create an artificial meteor shower - like a fireworks show! The particles would be different compositions (copper, strontium, iron, magnesium) so there would be different colors of meteor trails. Different sizes, too, for varied length of burn.
Even knowing all the obvious problems, I still think it'd be cool.