A purple-ish glow in the night sky? That’s STEVE.
STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, is an atmospheric phenomenon that accompanies auroras, such as the aurora borealis, better known as the Northern Lights, which have been spotted this week across the US.
The purple lines of light, often bordered by green patches, are the result of magnetic storms, which are usually caused by bursts of plasma from the sun and have been known to disrupt GPS systems or the power grid on Earth.
Energetic particles emitted from the sun hurtling toward Earth are deflected by our magnetic field toward our poles, creating auroras when they enter the atmosphere, according to Space.com.
STEVE is not made of charged particles but is actually gas — a crimson stream formed as a result of a hot, fast-moving atmosphere, occurring at altitudes of 62 to 124 miles.
STEVE appears as a purple band, sometimes bordered with green light, in the night sky along with the aurora. ZUMAPRESS.com
STEVE in the sky earlier this year. Julie Smith/Story Photo Agency/Shutterstock
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STEVE is the result of hot, fast-moving gas in the upper atmosphere. Julie Smith/Story Photo Agency/Shutterstock
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Magnetic storms cause the rivers to emit hot, fast-moving gases.
“The atmosphere is heated by a very fast stream of plasma colliding with neutral gas,” Toshi Nishimura, an associate professor at Boston University’s College of Engineering and co-author of a preliminary report on STEVE in 2018, told Space.com.
STEVE first caught the attention of “citizen scientists” between 2015 and 2016 — they posted brilliant celestial sightings online.
Originally, STEVE was referred to as just Steve, named after the scary, insurmountable hedge from the cartoon “Over the Hedge” to make it seem less threatening.
Later, researchers reverse-engineered the name, turning Steve into an acronym.
Auroras differ from STEVEs, the latter being the result of hot, fast-moving streams of gas. UPI
Auroras are the result of charged particles coming into contact with Earth’s magnetosphere. ZUMAPRESS.com
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Auroras are usually green, pink and red. Yvette Cardozo
Aurora over Wales in September. Matthew Browne / SWNS
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Elizabeth MacDonald, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and co-author of the 2018 STEVE report, has praised amateur aurora seekers, who are crucial to researching the phenomenon.
They were able to capture what dedicated scientific cameras couldn’t because STEVE appeared at a different wavelength than normal auroras, MacDonald told Space.com.
STEVE was recently spotted by keen stargazers in the UK and parts of Europe last weekend, with experts expecting to see the glowing spectacle more often due to a predicted increase in solar activity.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
