STEVE

Steve steve English STEVEs (Northern Lights) thumb|A STEVE as seen in Manitoba in 2017 Alternative forms en steve Steve Etymology (2016) en Steve nickname given to this aurora-like light. en strong thermal emission velocity enhancement. The nickname "Steve" resulted from a meeting between citizen scientists and researchers from the University of Calgary at a bar, to discuss the purple light. 'Steve' is the namesake of a cartoon character from the 2006 animated film "Over the Hedge", where cartoon animals try to peek over a suburban hedge. The backronym resulted from researchers creating a meaning to the nickname "Steve", keeping the original nickname for the formal name. New York Times, "That Ghostly, Glowing Light Above Canada? It’s Just Steve", Jacey Fortin, 25 April 2017 New York Times, "Steve, a Famous Northern Light, Stays Mysterious (and Keeps His Name)", Jacey Fortin, 15 March 2018 NASA, "The Aurora Named STEVE", Yvette Smith, 15 March 2018 Popular Mechanics, "Sky Phenomenon 'Steve' Is Finally Explained", Sophie Weiner, 16 March 2018 The Guardian, "‘Steve’: the mystery purple aurora that rivals the northern lights", Emine Saner, 19 March 2018 The Telegraph, "What is Steve? Mysterious aurora seen in Scotland", Helena Horton, 20 March 2018 Noun - An aurora-like light found in southern Canada (consistently lower latitude, unlike the aurora borealis which is generally high latitude), composed of a glowing purple ribbon of light, with green spikes coming off obliquely parallel to each other, moving at about 6.5 km/s East to West. Presumably occurs in the southern hemisphere as well. en 2018-03-14 Sarah Lewin Meet ‘Steve,’ the Aurora-Like Mystery Scientists Are Beginning to Unravel https://www.space.com/39968-steve-aurora-mystery-explained.html w:Space.com 17 March 2018 Researchers first became aware of STEVE after members of a Facebook group called the Alberta Aurora Chasers (which refers to the province in western Canada) began posting photos of unusual purplish-greenish streaks oriented nearly vertically in the sky. https://web.archive.org/web/20260310092739/https://www.space.com/39968-steve-aurora-mystery-explained.html 10 March 2026 2018, "On the Origin of STEVE: Particle Precipitation or Ionospheric Skyglow?", Geophysical Research Letters, B. Gallardo‐Lacourt; J. Liang; Y. Nishimura; E. Donovan;, DOI: 10.1029/2018GL078509 Although STEVE has been documented by amateur night sky watchers for decades, it is an exciting new upper atmospheric phenomenon for the scientific community. 2018, "Historical observations of STEVE", arXiv, Mark Bailey; Conor Byrne; Rok Nezic; David Asher; James Finnegan;, BIBCODE: 2018arXiv180801872B Respecting its nickname, they have dubbed the phenomenon STEVE, an acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. 2018, "New science in plain sight: Citizen scientists lead to the discovery of optical structure in the upper atmosphere", Science Advances, Elizabeth A. MacDonald et al.;, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaq0030 First, in the unfiltered white-light STEVE is a narrow purple band with the strongest emissions saturating to white Hypernyms en Northern Lights Coordinate terms en SAID en subauroral ion drift en aurora References Further reading NASA Goddard: "The Aurora Named STEVE", YouTube, 14 March 2018 Anagrams en eestv evets