Aurora Enthusiasts Discover A Strange New Light In The Sky And Named It Steve (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the BBC: A group of aurora enthusiasts have found a new type of light in the night sky and named it Steve. Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary in Canada spotted the feature in photos shared on a Facebook group. He did not recognise it as a catalogued phenomenon and although the group were calling it a proton arc, he knew proton auroras were not visible. Testing showed it appeared to be a hot stream of fast-flowing gas in the higher reaches of the atmosphere.

The European Space Agency sent electric field instruments to measure it 300km (190 miles) above the surface of the Earth and found the temperature of the air was 3,000C (5,400F) hotter inside the gas stream than outside it. Inside, the 25km-wide ribbon of gas was flowing at 6 km/s (13,000mph), 600 times faster than the air on either side.
One official at the European Space Agency made sure to thank the "army of citizen scientists" who helped with the discovery, saying "It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadn't noticed it before." The name apparently came from a scene in the movie "Over the Hedge."

Comments

Could have been *much* worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

It could have been much worse. They could have called it Lighty McLightface.

Re:Could have been *much* worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aurora McAuroface?

Ok, I know I'm stretching for an "orifice" joke there, but in my defence, it's Monday.

Your pun was a pretty large turd, so there you go.

3000C @ 190 miles

[Big Hairy Ian]

Bear in mind at the extremely low pressure @ 190 miles (You'd need a space suite) 3000C is not as sweltering as it sounds

Common?

[pr0t0]

"It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadn't noticed it before."

So, despite all of the sky watchers, stargazers, atmospheric researchers, astronauts, and people in Iceland; no one noticed the apparently "remarkably common" streaks of 5400 degree gas travelling at 13000mph a mere 50-60 miles below the ISS?

Re:Common?

[Zocalo]

Aurora are highly variable objects; they come in many shapes, shades, intensities, speeds they move back and forth across the sky, the speed at which they can appear/disappear, and so on. It's not that they haven't been noticed before, in fact that's how they were identified as being so common - by finding examples captured in previous images of the night sky taken by aurora watchers and similar - it's just that no one has realised they were a distinct form of interaction between particles in the upper atmosphere until now. You've also got to keep in mind that for many people that live in latitudes where aurora are common they're just a fact of life and not all that much more notable than the moon in the night sky, so the chances are pretty high that these jets have been seen on countless occasions, maybe even photographed as well, dismissed as a band/ribbon aurora (not the most photogenic type, and of little interest unless you're new to aurora watching), and that was that.

Re:Common?

[wonkey_monkey]

Were they full of billowing hot gas, too?

I will name him George

[jfdavis668]

and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him

Re:Acronym?

[almitydave]

I'm wondering how long it will be before someone comes up with an excessively forced acronym for "steve".

Superhigh-Temperature Extreme Velocity Ether?