Page 18 - IAV Digital Magazine #436

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
New Type of Northern Lights Discovered, Named Steve
By Mark Torregrossa
Northern lights enthusiasts have discovered a new type of northern lights, and named it Steve.
You might wonder what Steve means. At first it didn't mean any- thing. It was just a name. Steve comes from the animated movie Over The Hedge. In the movie, the main characters were watching bushes rustle. Out came an animal that they didn't know. So they named it Steve.
That's how Steve, the new type of northern lights, got its name. Citizen scientists took a few photos of Steve and showed the photos to researchers. Scientists initially couldn't explain the newly discov- ered aurora type, so they all decided on naming it Steve for now.
Burcu Kosar, Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, says researchers have now turned Steve
into an acronym - Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.
Kosar admits sci- entists still don't know exactly how Steve is produced. NASA is working on the scientific aspects of Steve, and trying to understand Steve. Kosar suspects Steve might have both a magnetos- pheric and ionos- pheric origin.
Steve is a very thin, purplish arc that can almost look like a picket
fence, according to Kosar. Kosar says Steve can be viewed farther south than the larger oval auroras that sweep the skyline. If a large scale aurora is vis- ible in Canada, Steve may be briefly visible in
the northern bor- der states of the U.S., such as Michigan.
Now one of NASA's goals is to get larger numbers of citizen scientists to report northern lights, including Steve. NASA has
set up a project called Aurorasauru s. At Aurorasaurus, you can see where the northern lights are predicted to be located in the near future, and actual reports of the
northern lights from people around the world.
Aurorasaurus also has a northern lights alerting fea- ture.
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iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine