Post by MCDemuth on Aug 21, 2018 15:49:38 GMT
Eerie Sky Glow Called 'Steve' Isn't an Aurora, Is 'Completely Unknown' to Science
August 21, 2018 10:13am ET
Late at night on July 25, 2016, a thin river of purple light slashed through the skies of northern Canada in an arc that seemed to stretch hundreds of miles into space. It was a magnificent, mysterious, borderline-miraculous sight, and the group of citizen skywatchers who witnessed it decided to give the phenomenon a fittingly majestic name: "Steve."
Given its coincidence with the northern lights, Steve was just thought to be part of the aurora — the shimmering sheets of nighttime color that appear in the sky when charged plasma particles streak out of the sun, sail across space on solar winds and jolt down Earth's magnetic field toward the planet's poles. However, a new study published today (Aug. 20) in the journal Geophysical Research Letters suggests that such a simple explanation might not apply.
According to researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada and the University of California, Los Angeles, Steve does not contain the telltale traces of charged particles blasting through Earth's atmosphere that auroras do. Steve, therefore, is not an aurora at all, but something entirely different: a mysterious, largely unexplained phenomenon that the researchers have dubbed a "sky glow."
Read More Here:
www.space.com/41561-steve-not-aurora-mystery-phenomenon.html
S.T.E.V.E.
Researchers decided to keep the name "Steve" as the official nomenclature for the colorful happening, but they changed it to an acronym standing for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement" — aka STEVE.
Good...
I have an Uncle named Steve, and he named his son Stephen... And... There have been a couple of movies where the name "Steve" has been used for comedic effect. Now there is a Sky Glow Ribbon called "Steve"...
There's something about Steve
Yeah, There's just something about the name "Steve"... that I can't get away from. LOL!
Cool Atmospheric Phenomenon though!
By The Way, Is that a wizard in the photo? LOL!
