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Aurora photographers have been buzzing in recent days about a newly spotted phenomenon in the sky. It’s a purple ribbon of light that differs in appearance from standard aurora. After being confirmed as a new phenomenon, it was given a new name: “Steve.”
After focusing its Swarm program satellites on locations where there were Steve sightings by photographers, the European Space Agency detected the purple ribbon with its instruments. The temperature inside the ribbon was 3000°C hotter than the air around it, and the gas was traveling at 6 km/s versus the 10 m/s speed of the surrounding air.
After focusing its Swarm program satellites on locations where there were Steve sightings by photographers, the European Space Agency detected the purple ribbon with its instruments. The temperature inside the ribbon was 3000°C hotter than the air around it, and the gas was traveling at 6 km/s versus the 10 m/s speed of the surrounding air.
“It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadn’t noticed it before,” says Professor Eric Donovan of the University of Calgary. “It’s thanks to ground-based observations, satellites, today’s explosion of access to data and an army of citizen scientists joining forces to document it.”
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