Alan Dyer, from rural Alberta, Canada, has captured stunning photos of a rare sky glow known as STEVE from his backyard. Typically, citizen scientists like Dyer let their cameras collect light for seconds to capture the ribbon of mauve. However, when a STEVE stretched over his house one August night in 2022, Dyer took a different approach. He sent the video to Toshi Nishimura, a space physicist at Boston University, who was amazed by the high-resolution view of STEVE. However, the fine details of STEVE didn’t align with scientists’ understanding of the atmospheric chemistry behind the airglow, causing confusion. The science of STEVE, short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, has raised more questions than it has answered since citizen scientists first shared their images a few years ago.
2023-12-20 10:00:00
Article from www.sciencenews.org