Earth is not without its unknown phenomena. And one of our favorites to talk about on the show is STEVE. STEVE is a type of aurora that appears as streaks of purple and green dancing lights. It was named STEVE as a joke, and then someone created the backronym Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement to make STEVE sound more scientific. We love STEVE.

Anyway, scientists have been trying to understand STEVE for a few years now, and it wasn’t until 2016 that STEVE even had a name. Now researchers from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder presented their findings on just where STEVE originates at the AGU Fall Meeting this week. They kind of lucked out on this analysis with the help of citizen scientists who managed to take photographs of the same STEVE event from 400 kilometers apart. With two different angles to work with, the team could triangulate where the bands of color originated, and they came from the magnetosphere.

Lead author Xiangning Chu explains: Our analysis indicates that both the purple and green STEVE emissions are driven by the same, narrow region, so it must be the magnetosphere. This supports our previous study, which provided evidence that STEVE’s driver region is located at a sharp boundary in the magnetosphere that’s marked by strong waves and particle acceleration.

Next up, they hope to figure out what causes STEVE. Again, we’ll bring that result to you here on Daily Space when they find it.

More Information

LASP press release