Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Space.com sister site Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior.
The"secret twin" of the purple skyglow phenomenon called STEVE is seen swooping over a green aurora after midnight near the Arctic Circle.A purple ribbon of light in the sky known as"STEVE" appears to have a long-lost twin. Earth, Planets and Space
in April, finds that whereas STEVE appears before midnight and flows from east to west, a twin phenomenon occurs in the predawn hours, flowing in the opposite direction. stands for"strong thermal emission velocity enhancement." The phenomenon was first noticed in 2016 thanks to a group of amateur watchers who met on a Facebook group called Alberta Aurora Chasers.
Astronomers knew that, in a mirror image of the evening hours, a similar stream of gas flows eastward before dawn. However, no vibrant visual component like STEVE had ever been seen in association with this stream. Then, Norwegian photographer Gabriel Arne Hofstra happened to be looking through a database of images from the all-sky digital camera at the Ramfjordmoen Research Station above the Arctic Circle when he saw a STEVE-like purple ribbon in an image from the predawn hours of Dec.
Researchers from the University of Electro-Communications in Japan, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, and the Arctic University of Norway then found that two Swarm satellites had made measurements in the purple ribbon during that time period. They examined the data and found that, sure enough, the purple corresponded with an eastward stream of hot gas: STEVE's secret twin.
She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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