Alan Dyer is a Canadian who has captured incredible images of a rare sky light known as STEVE from the pitch-black darkness of his garden in rural Alberta. He and other citizen scientists usually let their cameras gather light for a few seconds at a time in order to catch this ribbon of mauve. Long exposures blur STEVE's most delicate details in favor of highlighting its hue. However, Dyer used a different strategy one August night in 2022 when a STEVE extended over his home.
He used his camera to focus on the glow in the sky and recorded STEVE's minute details at a pace of 24 pictures per second. STEVE appeared as a violently flickering stream in Dyer's camera, as opposed to the mostly calm purple drift observed in earlier pictures.
STEVE has more mysteries than ever.
Researchers understood that STEVE was not an aurora when Canadian aurora chasers initially presented it to the scientific community in 2016 (SN: 3/15/18). When charged particles from the Earth's magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere, shower down into the atmosphere, auroras are created (SN: 2/7/20). Near Earth's poles, these particles collide with nitrogen and oxygen, causing the sky to be painted in hues of red, green, and blue. Steve, though, was purple. Furthermore, it seemed to be nearer the equator than both the northern and southern lights.
"Here in southern western Canada, the aurora usually appears to the north," explains Dyer. Meanwhile, STEVE is able to fly directly overhead.
Afterwards, STEVE was associated with a charged particle river that was rushing through the atmosphere (SN: 4/30/19). That torrent of plasma,According to Nishimura, "nitric oxide excited by the fast plasma stream is the leading theory of the STEVE emission." The purple light is believed to be emitted by that nitric oxide. However, Nishimura points.
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