{"id":356,"date":"2016-08-25T14:46:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T14:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurorasaurudev.wpengine.com\/?p=356"},"modified":"2023-12-26T21:54:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T21:54:28","slug":"heres-what-you-told-us-about-the-many-types-of-aurora-seen-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/?p=356","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s what you told us about the many types of aurora seen in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thank you to those of you who contributed to auroral science in 2015! <\/strong><\/h2>\n

We\u2019re excited to share some highlights of what we all collectively saw last year in the skies based on when you reported \u201cYes, I saw aurora!\u201d Thanks for reporting through our form on our website – the answers you submit to each question on that form help us learn important things about aurora. The form pops up after you click “Yes” to the question “Did you see the aurora?” in the ribbon on the dashboard of our website. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s a snapshot of the form:<\/span>\"Screen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

On average, about 60% of people answered all the questions;\u00a0take a look at how we use and learn from each question, below.<\/p>\n

What\u00a0colors were reported most?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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A variety of colors were reported for aurora in 2015. \u00a0Aurora color is based on the chemical make-up of the particles interacting and the amount of energy exchanged in the interaction at different altitudes. Different atoms interact with our atmosphere in different ways to emit different wavelengths of light, seen to us as different colors. We have an short\u00a0infographic on our website, here<\/a>. \u00a0Although a little under\u00a0half of the reports didn\u2019t specify color, green<\/strong> was the mostly commonly reported color of all reports being seen 26% of the time, with multi-color<\/strong> aurora being reported 23% of the time. \u00a0<\/span>Green colored aurora are generally a result of electrons from the magnetosphere colliding with lower altitude oxygen atoms in our atmosphere. Higher altitude oxygen atoms create red aurora. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you seen any green aurora with a pink lining on the bottom? Aurora with these colors indicate that it was very active. Many of our multi-colored reports included both green and red aurora. \u00a0If you report aurora to us, make sure to specify the colors in your report so we can report back to you on how that fits in with all our reports.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We received very little purely red aurora reports which makes sense because they are very rare! \u201cGreat Red Aurora\u201d<\/em> as they are sometimes called are rare not only because they come from very active aurora but also because they happen only under a specific type of geomagnetic storm. \u00a0If you see red aurora, please let us know as it is visible from farther away than other kinds of aurora! \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How active was the aurora?<\/h2>\n

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About 47% of our reports indicated that the aurora we saw were pretty quiet<\/strong>. This also makes sense as aurora activity level is determined by how large the geomagnetic disturbances are in Earth\u2019s magnetosphere; in 2015 we didn\u2019t have a lot of very large disturbances over all the time in the year. \u00a0About 12% of our reports listed\u00a0the aurora were very active<\/strong> with 41% reporting generally active<\/strong>\u00a0aurora.<\/p>\n

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Where\u00a0in the sky was the aurora?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Reporting the location in the sky you see aurora is particularly helpful; this kind of information helps scientists evaluate and update the aurora view lines. Of the reports that included the sky location of aurora, around a third were seen either at the northern horizon<\/strong> or at a roughly 45\u00ba angle<\/strong> looking up toward the North. A little over a tenth of all reports indicated aurora was seen directly overhead<\/strong> and about 7% of reports said aurora was seen in the whole sky<\/strong> (lucky folks!). \u00a0Reports of overhead aurora help with work scientists are doing with aurora forecasting models. Model inputs come mostly from satellites which fly above us, in the ionosphere. Having supplementary observations on the ground allows for cleaner comparisons. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s important to note that we are not reporting where aurora were in the sky in 2015 but instead, where our reports came from. This is called a geographic bias but we have ways to account for it in our scientific analysis. For instance, only 1% of aurora were reported to us from the Southern hemisphere<\/strong> in 2015. \u00a0Not because only 1% of all aurora occurred in the South, but because we don\u2019t have as many citizen scientists reporting aurora in that region of the world. \u00a0We\u2019d love to have more!<\/span><\/p>\n

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What type of aurora did you see most?<\/h2>\n

We also saw a variety of different types of aurora in 2015. We ask for three primary types; these three types are each driven by vastly different\u00a0physics processes in the magnetosphere. Overall, there are many different types of aurora and the names for these types of aurora may change based where the aurora are being seen. People identify and talk about aurora in different ways based on regional and cultural differences. And, to add to the mix, citizen scientists can enter in their own descriptive terms for aurora type, too. \u00a0We have more information on the common types of aurora (and some beautiful images and a gif!) on our website, here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The majority of reports identified the aurora they saw as aurora as diffuse glows at 39%<\/strong>. This is consistent with most of the aurora being seen as pretty quiet. Close to that number, nearly 37%<\/strong> of citizen scientist reports show that they saw aurora as discrete arcs<\/strong>. \u00a0A little under a quarter<\/strong> of all reports saw the aurora in patches<\/strong> and less than 2%<\/strong> identified aurora in other ways. The patches are usually seen after midnight, when people tend to be out less, and are less visually spectacular but very intricate and scientifically interesting. Learn more about different types of aurora on our blog with this\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0by Guest Blogger Allison Jaynes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We also saw registrations as users to the site grow nearly 12-fold<\/strong> in total number! We feel fortunate and excited to have so many new aurora enthusiasts onboard! \u00a0Net growth by month during 2015 peaked around the Saint Patrick\u2019s Day Storm in March of 2015\u00a0and toward the end of the year when the ample amount of\u00a0darkness in the northern hemisphere makes for\u00a0good aurora viewing opportunities. \u00a0The best way to contribute observations is through the use of our form online, which covers many important questions and your answers (or qualitative metadata in technical terms) are very useful! Contributing your reports to the\u00a0project allows us a greater scope of information from which we can all learn from, together.<\/p>\n

Written\u00a0by Aaluk Edwardson, a science writer and outreach coordinator with the Aurorasaurus Project who also works in communications and outreach for the Heliophysics Division at the NASA HQ Office in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Plots\u00a0and analysis produced by Burcu Kosar, a postdoctoral researcher for the Aurorasaurus Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank you to those of you who contributed to auroral science in 2015! We\u2019re excited to share some highlights of what we all collectively saw last year in the skies based on when you reported \u201cYes, I saw aurora!\u201d Thanks for reporting through our form on our website – the answers you submit to each… Read More »Here\u2019s what you told us about the many types of aurora seen in 2015<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169,"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":[18,11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analyzing-aurorasaurus-data","category-studies-by-aurorasaurus","category-tweets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","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=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.aurorasaurus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}