June 13th, 2017: Steve

[xoxoxoBruce]

This is Steve, ain’t he pretty. <-- rhetorical, no question mark.

For the past three years, members of a Facebook group called the Alberta Aurora Chasers, consisting of photographers who exchange tips and images of the famed northern lights, have been capturing images of a gorgeous arc of light across the sky. The arc can be seen streaking across the northern sky typically in mid-latitude location like Calgary or Edmonton. It has a distinctive purplish or greenish color, and sometimes looks braided like a helix.
The group initially mistook the glowing ribbon of purple and green light as an airplane contrail. It was only when experimenting with their camera settings, like slow shutter speeds, and photo editing software to improve the color saturation, did they realize that the arc of light was self illuminated, unlike condensation trails from airplanes that are lit from light sources on the ground.

At first they thought it was a proton aurora, a rare kind of aurora caused by energized protons, as opposed to electrons.
But when they showed their pictures to astronomy professor Eric Donovan, he said nope, not a proton arc, but didn’t know what
the hell it was.

Chris Ratzlaff, a photographer and weather enthusiast and the Facebook group’s admin, posted a message on the Facebook group suggesting they call it “Steve”. The name comes from a scene in the animation movie “Over the Hedge” where all the animals stare at a frighteningly huge hedge not knowing what it was and begins to feel concerned until one of the animals, a squirrel, says "Let’s call it Steve," and everyone feels better.

Of course not knowing got Prof Donovan fired up so he went to the European Space Agency because they have Swarm satellites that study the Earth's magnetic field. Coordinating ground sightings and matching data from Swarm, they were able to measure Steve.

We now know that a Steve is a fast moving ribbon of hot gases, about 25 to 30 kilometer wide, aligns east-west, and extends for hundreds, possibly thousands, of miles. The temperature inside a Steve was measured at 3000°C and the ribbon of gas was flowing westwards at about 6 km/s compared to a speed of about 10 m/s either side of the ribbon. A Steve can last for as long as an hour or more, and it appears to be seasonal, disappearing from October to February.

Glad they figured it out. it's a bitch having a woody and not her name or anything about her.

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