UM-Bot Posted August 22, 2018 #1 Share Posted August 22, 2018 A peculiar strip of glowing light spotted in the sky over Canada has left scientists scratching their heads. https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/320833/mystery-sky-glow-steve-is-unknown-to-science 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glorybebe Posted August 22, 2018 #2 Share Posted August 22, 2018 I love how they figured out the scientific name to fit in with STEVE. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paperdyer Posted August 22, 2018 #3 Share Posted August 22, 2018 It's beautiful and funky-looking at the same time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pallidin Posted August 22, 2018 #4 Share Posted August 22, 2018 Stunning. Can only imagine what "pre-technology" man must have thought seeing such a site. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taniwha Posted August 23, 2018 #5 Share Posted August 23, 2018 Stunning. I guess auroras evolve like everything else. What will they look like 10,000 years from now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted August 23, 2018 #6 Share Posted August 23, 2018 16 minutes ago, taniwha said: Stunning. I guess auroras evolve like everything else. What will they look like 10,000 years from now? The same as they looked today and the same as they looked 10,000 years ago. The processes that form them remain the same over such short time periods. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taniwha Posted August 23, 2018 #7 Share Posted August 23, 2018 14 minutes ago, Waspie_Dwarf said: The same as they looked today and the same as they looked 10,000 years ago. The processes that form them remain the same over such short time periods. A lot can happen in 10,000 years so I guess time will reveal all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taniwha Posted August 23, 2018 #8 Share Posted August 23, 2018 Just an afterthought how long has this phenomenon STEVE been around anyway? Is there any way to date how ancient or modern it is? Or isn't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.A.T.1961 Posted August 24, 2018 #9 Share Posted August 24, 2018 21 hours ago, taniwha said: Just an afterthought how long has this phenomenon STEVE been around anyway? Is there any way to date how ancient or modern it is? Or isn't? STEVE is a purple ribbon of light that amateur astronomers in Canada have been photographing for decades, belatedly catching the attention of the scientific community in 2016. It doesn't look exactly like an aurora, but it often appears alongside auroras during geomagnetic storms. Is it an aurora -- or not? That's what Gallardo-Lacourt's team wanted to find out. Auroras appear when energetic particles from space rain down on Earth's atmosphere during geomagnetic storms. If STEVE is an aurora, they reasoned, it should form in much the same way. On March 28, 2008, STEVE appeared over eastern Canada just as NOAA's Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite 17 (POES-17) passed overhead. The satellite, which can measure the rain of charged particles that causes auroras, went directly above the purple ribbon. Gallardo-Lacourt's team looked carefully at the old data and found ... no rain at all. "Our results verify that this STEVE event is clearly distinct from the aurora borealis since it is characterized by the absence of particle precipitation," say the researchers. "Interestingly, its skyglow could be generated by a new and fundamentally different mechanism in Earth's ionosphere." http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=22&month=08&year=2018 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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