Meet Steve — a new atmospheric phenomenon!

Meet Steve — a new atmospheric phenomenon! Steve is so strange that still has no official scientific description, and therefore the name of his temporary. Thanks to the fans of the Aurora and scientists studying the atmosphere, we learned about Steve anymore, but there are still a lot of questions.

Amazing phenomenon was first documented by a group of "Hunters Aurora Alberta" on Facebook. Since then, Steve has reported more than 50 times. This ribbon of purple and green lights are not like any other Aurora, and we still don't know why it is formed. "Hunters Alberta Aurora" has decided to call the phenomenon by Steve in honor of the children's movie "over the hedge" in which one of the characters calls Steve any object that is unknown to him.

Work enthusiasts attracted the attention of scientists of NASA, ESA and the University of calgary (Canada), who are actively trying to figure out what really is this fragile object.

Steve is an arch with a width of 25-30 km, which extends for hundreds of thousands of kilometers from East to West. The phenomenon may remain in the sky for an hour or longer, and is seasonal, disappearing from October to February. Steve usually consists of purple shades and is often accompanied by green short formations in the form of a palisade. The phenomenon occurs in the Northern hemisphere along the same latitude as calgary, Alberta.

Recently one of the satellites Swarm flew right through Steve. At an altitude of 300 km sensors recorded a temperature increase of 3 thousand degrees Celsius, and the data showed the 25-kilometer ribbon of gas floating to the West at speeds of 6-10 km/s.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»