SPACE — We may be familiar with a phenomenon in the sky called the aurora. However, the aurora is not the only amazing display of light in the sky.
In the sky there is a phenomenon called STEVE. STEVE stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. This is a light phenomenon similar to an aurora, but not an aurora.
Reporting from Space, STEVE was discovered between 2015 and 2016 by citizen scientists in Canada chasing the aurora. The first study on STEVE was published in the journal Science Advances in 2018. Now, researchers are studying STEVE.
STEVE is a purplish streak of light in the night sky that resembles an aurora. In fact, STEVE has only ever been observed in conjunction with auroras. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), this is because both phenomena are thought to be caused by the same space weather event.
When energetic particles from the sun hit the Earth, our magnetic field directs the particles towards the north and south poles.
The electrically charged particles then enter the Earth’s atmosphere, attracting gas atoms and molecules and producing the aurora borealis (northern lights) and aurora australis (southern lights).
The process is similar to how neon lights work: When molecules and atoms are “excited” by electrons, the molecules must return to their original energy (ground state) and do so by releasing that energy as photons (light).
At the same time, some of the sun’s emissions (in the form of super-speed plasma streams) heat the gases in the upper atmosphere, and that’s what creates STEVE. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), STEVE is a hot, luminous gas.
STEVE is a jet of hot gas in the upper atmosphere at an altitude of about 100–200 kilometers. The atmosphere is heated by very fast plasma flows colliding with neutral gas.
An old phenomenon that has not been seriously studied
The first paper on STEVE was published in 2018. The paper was inspired by the work of amateur aurora hunters and citizen scientists from the Alberta Aurora Chasers Facebook group.
The group photographed the phenomenon several times between 2015 and 2016. They then discussed their observations with space scientists Elizabeth MacDonald of NASA and Eric Donovan of the University of Calgary.
Researchers begin an investigation into STEVE. After STEVE became popular, scientists returned to historical observations of auroras and realized that STEVE-like phenomena had been reported in the 1890s and 1910s.
However, at that time there were no color photos, so it was difficult to confirm whether it was really STEVE or not. But the description of the glow, ‘a luminous band like the straight tail of a large comet,’ matches how scientists now characterize STEVE.
2023-11-07 04:15:00
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