Humans have looked to the sky since time immemorial, and noticed a strange purplish arc with stripy green features that runs east to west and appears closer to the equator than regular aurora. In the mid-2010s, aurora chasers began to collectively photograph and speculate about the phenomenon, which did not yet have a formal scientific… Read More »What’s in a name? The meaning of STEVE
Guest post by Dr. Liz MacDonald, Sarah Kirn, and Laura Edson As it rises, sets, dances the seasons with the Earth, and sends space weather our way, the Sun is an integral part of our daily lives. Science is one of many ways to get to know our Sun better, and the upcoming year will… Read More »Connecting Senses and Sensors with Solar Science
By Vincent Ledvina, Andy Witteman, and Laura Brandt Watching the aurora is a breathtaking experience, but unless they are very strong, the Northern Lights don’t look to the naked eye like their colorful photos. It’s not a trick of the light—just a difference in the ways eyes and camera lenses work. In Your Eyes The… Read More »Battle of the Lenses: Eyes vs. Cameras
Please excuse the slight delay in posting this while we underwent tech updates on our blog. While our favorite quirky purple arc has been observed for millennia, we want to celebrate one highlight in its relationship with humanity. STEVE (“Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement”) is a purplish arc with stripy green ray features that runs… Read More »Celebrating STEVE and You!
Guest post by Dr. Liz MacDonald The Heliophysics Big Year will celebrate solar science and its connection with our world; Heliophysics itself is the study of our Sun and how it interacts with everything in our solar system. Inspired by the “Big Year” concept in birding, this will be a personal quest to experience and… Read More »Coming soon: the Heliophysics Big Year
Citizen scientists can not only contribute to discoveries, but they can also bring their unique skills to bear to make discoveries of their own and create powerful tools to advance open science. Dr. Michael Hunnekuhl is one such innovator. Among atmospheric phenomena, STEVE (which stands for “Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement”) is one of those… Read More »Meeting STEVE Around the World
Every community of practice evolves its own vocabulary, and scientists and science communicators often rib themselves for how jargony STEM can be. In the late 1970’s, tech film narrator Bud Haggert created the affectionately cheeky “Turbo Encabulator“, using plausible but made-up jargon to make this classic engineering sketch incomprehensible. Engineers have delighted in recreating and… Read More »Small Words, Big Ideas: Up Goer Five
They dance above the clouds but below the aurora, crimson fingers stretching up and down, bursting like fireworks then vanishing in the blink of an eye. Sprites, brief flashes of red and purple light associated with lightning, are some of the least-understood electrical phenomena in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Even though globally there are 30-100… Read More »Sprites: The Aurora’s Flashy Cousins
Since time immemorial, humanity has developed a deep and multifaceted relationship with our nearest star. While each culture expresses that bond in its own way, humans share millennia of solar observation. The Sun makes life on Earth possible, and its ever-changing nature affects our daily lives. What does the Sun mean to you? In Kiuġuyat:… Read More »Relationship With the Sun
There’s nothing quite like the disappointment when a promising CME fizzles out, or when clouds obscure the sky during a magnificent aurora display (we feel for you in the Pacific Northwest!) Experienced aurora chasers point out that such fickleness is part of the excitement, and that’s true! The reason that the question “when can I… Read More »Negative Aurora Reports Are a Plus For Science!