{"id":1267,"date":"2020-11-13T20:46:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T20:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurorasaurudev.wpengine.com\/?p=1267"},"modified":"2023-12-26T21:56:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T21:56:55","slug":"aurora-chasing-citizen-scientists-help-discover-a-new-feature-of-steve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/?p=1267","title":{"rendered":"Aurora-Chasing Citizen Scientists Help Discover A New Feature of STEVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1270\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1270\" style=\"width: 755px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/steve_image_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1270\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/steve_image_1.jpg\" alt=\"A still image with aurora in the background shows the mauve arc and green &quot;picket fence&quot; features of STEVE\" width=\"755\" height=\"503\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1270\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taken July 17, 2018, at Little Kenosee Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, this photo shows the tiny green streaks below STEVE. Neil Zeller, photographer and co-author on the paper, commented \u201cSTEVE was bright and powerful for a full hour that night.\u201d Credit: Copyright Neil Zeller, used with permission<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plucky subauroral phenomenon <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/4\/3\/eaaq0030\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">STEVE<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) has struck again! Teamwork between citizen scientists and scientists Joshua Semeter, Michael Hunnekuhl, Elizabeth MacDonald, Michael Hirsch, Neil Zeller, Alexei Chernenkoff, and Jun Wang, has led to new information and new mysteries about features in STEVE\u2019s dapper green picket fence structure. The team\u2019s work\u2014which includes extraordinary analyses by Aurorasaurus Ambassador <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/?p=891\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michael Hunnekuhl<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014is <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2020AV000183\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the new, open-access journal <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AGU Advances. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Read more below in this repost of a <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/goddard\/2020\/citizen-scientists-help-discover-a-new-feature-of-steve\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NASA feature<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Abbey Interrante, with <\/span><b>bold emphases<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> added by Dr. Liz, and then explore:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Extended AGU coverage: an <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/eos.org\/editor-highlights\/citizen-scientists-observe-mysterious-green-streaks-below-steve\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Editor\u2019s highlight <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1029\/2020AV000268\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Viewpoint<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for additional context<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/zE9J4rQBFzM\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">presentation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Joshua Semeter and Michael Hunnekuhl to the Aurorasaurus Ambassadors on their findings, followed by a Q&amp;A with the coauthors. We regret that Jun Wang was unable to join the Q&amp;A but are grateful for his work on the publication!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Congratulations to the team! And at Aurorasaurus we are especially excited about the contributions by citizen scientists! We look forward to learning more about STEVE as these collaborations continue. <\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>In 2018, a new aurora-like discovery struck the world. From 2015 to 2016, citizen scientists reported 30 instances of a purple ribbon in the sky, with a green picket fence structure underneath. Now named STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, this phenomenon is still new to scientists, who are working to understand all its details. What they do know is that STEVE is not a normal aurora \u2013 some think maybe it\u2019s not an aurora at all \u2013 and a new finding about the formation of streaks within the structure brings scientists one step closer to solving the mystery.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOften in physics, we build our understanding then test the extreme cases or test the cases in a different environment,\u201d Elizabeth MacDonald, a space scientist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, explains. <\/span><b>\u201cSTEVE is different than the usual aurora, but it is made of light and it is driven by the auroral system. In finding these tiny little streaks, we may be learning something fundamentally new in how green auroral light can be produced.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>These \u201ctiny little streaks\u201d are extraordinarily small point-like features within the green picket fence of STEVE.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In a new <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1029\/2020AV000183\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">paper for AGU Advances<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, researchers share their latest findings on these points. <\/span><b>They suggest the streaks could be moving points of light \u2013 elongated in the images due to blur from the cameras.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The tip of the streak in one image will line up with the end of the tail in the next image, contributing to this speculation from the scientists. However, there are still a lot of questions to be answered \u2013 determining whether the green light is a point or indeed a line, is one extra clue to help scientists figure out what causes green light.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m not entirely sure about anything with respect to this phenomenon just yet,\u201d Joshua Semeter, a professor at Boston University and first author on the paper, said. \u201cYou have other sequences where it looks like there is a tube-shaped structure that persists from image to image and doesn\u2019t seem to conform to a moving point source, so we\u2019re not really sure about that yet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1269\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1269\" style=\"width: 985px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/stevemay.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1269\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/stevemay.gif\" alt=\"Two animated gifs show the pale purplish streak of STEVE with green picket fence features flickering along one side\" width=\"985\" height=\"554\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1269\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two different angles of distinctive green streaks below a STEVE event on Aug. 31, 2016, near Carstairs, Alberta, Canada. Recent research about the formation of these streaks is allowing scientists to learn more about this aurora-like phenomenon.<br \/>Credits: Copyright Neil Zeller, used with permission<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">STEVE as a whole is something that scientists are still working to label. Scientists tend to classify optical features in the sky into two categories: airglow and aurora. When airglow occurs at night, atoms in the atmosphere recombine and release some of their stored energy in the form of light, creating bright swaths of color. By studying the patterns in airglow, scientists can learn more about that area of the atmosphere, the ionosphere. To be classified as a typical aurora, on the other hand, that release of light must be caused by electron bombardment. These features are formed differently but also look different \u2013 airglow can occur across Earth, while auroras form in a broad ring around Earth\u2019s magnetic poles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>\u201cSTEVE in general appears to not conform well to either one of those categories,\u201d Semeter said. \u201cThe emissions are coming from mechanisms that we don\u2019t fully understand just yet.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">STEVE\u2019s purple emissions are likely a result of ions moving at a supersonic speed. The green emissions seem to be related to eddies, like the ones you might see forming in a river, moving more slowly than the other water around it. The green features are also moving more slowly than the structures in the purple emissions, and scientists speculate they could be caused by <\/span><b>turbulence<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the space particles \u2013 a brew of charged particles and magnetic field, called plasma \u2013 at these altitudes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe know this kind of turbulence occurs. There are people who base their entire careers on studying turbulence in the ionospheric plasma formed by very rapid flows.\u201d Semeter said. \u201cThe evidence generally comes from radar measurements. We don\u2019t ever have an optical signature.\u201d Semeter suggests that when it comes to the appearance of STEVE, the flows in these instances are so extreme, that we can actually see them in the atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis paper is the tip of the iceberg in this new area of these tiny little pieces of the picket fence. Something we do in physics is try to chip away to increase our understanding,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cThis paper establishes the altitude range and some of the techniques we can use to identify these features, then they can be better resolved in other observations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To establish the altitude range and identify these features, the scientists extensively used photos and videos captured by citizen scientists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCitizen scientists are the ones who brought the STEVE phenomenon to the scientists\u2019 attention. Their photos are typically longer time lapse than our traditional scientific observations,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cCitizen scientists don\u2019t get into the patterns that scientists get into. They do things differently. They are free to move the camera around and take whatever exposure they want.\u201d However, <\/span><b>to make this new discovery of the points within STEVE, photographers actually took shorter exposure photographs to capture this movement.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To get those photographs, citizen scientists spend hours in the freezing cold, late at night, waiting for an aurora \u2013 or hopefully STEVE \u2013 to appear. <\/span><b>While data can indicate if an aurora will show up, indicators for STEVE haven\u2019t been identified yet. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the aurora chasers show up and take pictures anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Citizen scientist images of STEVE\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/gsfc\/50583788556\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\" data-context=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/50583788556_592c4c5d2d_6k.jpg\" alt=\"Citizen scientist images of STEVE\" width=\"5760\" height=\"3840\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neil Zeller, a photographer and co-author on the paper, says he didn\u2019t originally plan to be a citizen scientist. <\/span><b>\u201cIt was just for the beauty of it,\u201d Zeller explained. Zeller has been involved with the discovery of STEVE from the start. He showed a picture he took of STEVE to scientists years ago,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sparking the first research into the phenomena. Now he\u2019s a co-author on this paper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s an honor, it really is,\u201d Zeller said about contributing to this research. \u201cI tend to take a step back from the scientists doing the work. I\u2019m out there for the beauty of it and to capture these phenomena in the sky.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This paper also made use of another valuable citizen scientist contribution \u2013 a volunteer database of STEVE observations. Michael Hunnekuhl, another author on the paper, maintains this database and <\/span><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/citizenscience\/news\/short-history-of-steve\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has contributed to STEVE findings in the past<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><b>Hunnekuhl noticed the streaks in the photographs independently of the scientists on the paper, and his detailed record and triangulation techniques were pivotal in this research.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zeller, Hunnekuhl, and other citizen scientists plan to keep taking and examining those pictures, capturing the beauty of Earth\u2019s atmosphere, and MacDonald, Semeter, and other scientists will keep studying them, uncovering more about this new phenomenon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The plucky subauroral phenomenon STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) has struck again! Teamwork between citizen scientists and scientists Joshua Semeter, Michael Hunnekuhl, Elizabeth MacDonald, Michael Hirsch, Neil Zeller, Alexei Chernenkoff, and Jun Wang, has led to new information and new mysteries about features in STEVE\u2019s dapper green picket fence structure. The team\u2019s work\u2014which includes&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/?p=1267\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Aurora-Chasing Citizen Scientists Help Discover A New Feature of STEVE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,17,12],"tags":[20,21,19],"class_list":["post-1267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-citizen-science","category-other-resources-for-aurora-hunters","category-understanding-the-aurora","tag-auroras","tag-citizen-science","tag-steve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}