Hello Steve :O https://t.co/rEG9kZOhP9 #wildearth
— Ex Ranga (@vokstar) October 16, 2024
Eight years ago, a group of skywatchers in Canada saw an aurora that was unlike any they'd ever seen. It was a ribbon of green and purple. They didn't know what they were looking at, so they named it Steve. It wasn't the first time anyone has seen such a thing. Previous sightings were called a "proton arc," but that's not what it is. Of course, some scientists weren't happy with a phenomenon named Steve, so they fashioned it into an acronym (or "backronym") for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. It is caused by a ribbon of very hot plasma hundreds of miles above the earth.
During last week's solar storm, both the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis were seen in much wider areas than normal, and Steve was caught on camera by a number of people in South Australia, further north than the Southern Lights are usually seen. Normal aurora are caused by charged particles falling under the influence of the sun's geomagnetic activity. Steve, on the other hand, is more like "a welder's arc" in the upper atmosphere. Read more about this phenomena and see pictures at ABC. -via Metafilter
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