Thanks to social media and the power of citizen scientists chasing the northern lights, a new feature was discovered recently. Nobody knew what this strange ribbon of purple light was, so ...it was called Steve. ESA's Swarm magnetic field mission has now also met Steve and is helping to understand the nature of this new-found feature. Read more
Aurora photographers find new night sky lights and call them Steve
A group of aurora enthusiasts have found a new type of light in the night sky and named it Steve. Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary in Canada spotted the feature in photos shared on a Facebook group. He did not recognise it as a catalogued phenomenon and although the group were calling it a proton arc, he knew proton auroras were not visible. Testing showed it appeared to be a hot stream of fast-flowing gas in the higher reaches of the atmosphere. The European Space Agency (ESA) sent electric field instruments to measure it 300km above the surface of the Earth and found the temperature of the air was 3,000C hotter inside the gas stream than outside it. Read more
IST professor part of effort to map aurora borealis using Twitter
A professor at Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), in collaboration with scientists at NASA, is exploring how Twitter can be leveraged to help people track aurora sightings. Read more
The lights are one of nature's most spectacular displays, usually seen in the Arctic Circle. Amateur astrologers have been out in forces to see if the lights appear two nights running. Read more