Image copyright ESA 
 
 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 (ESA) 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. 
 
 Relatively little else is known about the big purple light as yet but it appears it is not an aurora as it does not stem from the interaction of solar particles with the Earth's magnetic field. 
 
 There are reports that the group called it Steve in homage to a 2006 children's film, Over the Hedge, where the characters give the name to a creature they have not seen before. 
 
 Roger Haagmans of the ESA said: "It is amazing how a beautiful natural phenomenon, seen by observant citizens, can trigger scientists' curiosity. 
 
 "It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadn't noticed it before. "It's thanks to ground-based observations, satellites, today's explosion of access to data and an army of citizen scientists joining forces to document it." ||||| When Swarm met Steve 
 
 Meet Steve Thanks to social media and the power of citizen scientists chasing the northern lights, a new feature was discovered recently. Nobody knew what this strange ribbon of purple light was, so … it was called Steve. ESA’s Swarm magnetic field mission has now also met Steve and is helping to understand the nature of this new-found feature. Speaking at the recent Swarm science meeting in Canada, Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary explained how this new finding couldn’t have happened 20 years ago when he started to study the aurora. While the shimmering, eerie, light display of auroras might be beautiful and captivating, they are also a visual reminder that Earth is connected electrically to the Sun. A better understanding of the aurora helps to understand more about the relationship between Earth’s magnetic field and the charged atomic particles streaming from the Sun as the solar wind. “In 1997 we had just one all-sky imager in North America to observe the aurora borealis from the ground,” said Prof. Donovan. 
 
 Loading... All-sky imagers and satellites Access the video “Back then we would be lucky if we got one photograph a night of the aurora taken from the ground that coincides with an observation from a satellite. Now we have many more all-sky imagers and satellite missions like Swarm so we get more than 100 a night.” And now, social media and citizen scientists also have an increasingly important role. For instance, the Aurorasaurus website makes it possible for a large number of people to communicate about the aurora borealis. It connects citizen scientists to scientists and trawls Twitter feeds for instances of the word ‘aurora’. In doing so, it does an excellent job of forecasting where the aurora oval will be. At a recent talk, Prof. Donovan met members of another social media group on Facebook: the Alberta Aurora Chasers. The group attracts members of the general public who are interested in the night sky and includes some talented photographers. Looking at their photographs, Prof. Donovan came across something he hadn’t seen before. The group called this strange purple streak of light in the night sky captured in their photographs a ‘proton arc’ but for a number of reasons, including the fact that proton aurora are never visible, he knew this had to be something else. 
 
 Aurora borealis However, nobody knew what it actually was so they decided to put a name to this mystery feature: they called it Steve. While the Aurora Chasers combed through their photos and kept an eye out for the next appearances of Steve, Prof. Donovan and colleagues turned to data from the Swarm mission and his network of all-sky cameras. Soon he was able to match a ground sighting of Steve to an overpass of one of the three Swarm satellites. Prof. Donovan said, “As the satellite flew straight though Steve, data from the electric field instrument showed very clear changes. “The temperature 300 km above Earth’s surface jumped by 3000°C and the data revealed a 25 km-wide ribbon of gas flowing westwards at about 6 km/s compared to a speed of about 10 m/s either side of the ribbon. 
 
 Swarm “It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadn’t noticed it before. It’s thanks to ground-based observations, satellites, today’s explosion of access to data and an army of citizen scientists joining forces to document it. “Swarm allows us to measure it and I’m sure will continue to help resolve some unanswered questions.” ESA’s Swarm mission scientist, Roger Haagmans, added, “It is amazing how a beautiful natural phenomenon, seen by observant citizens, can trigger scientists’ curiosity. “The ground network and the electric and magnetic field measurements made by Swarm are great tools that can be used to better understand Steve. This is a nice example of society for science.”
– Several avid northern lights watchers who call themselves Alberta Aurora Chasers on Facebook were sharing photographs at a talk when a professor at the University of Calgary noticed something strange. The citizen scientists were referring to a purple streak of light as a "proton arc," but no proton auroras are actually visible. Intrigued, Prof. Eric Donovan looked into the matter and, looping in other scientists, realized they were observing a previously undescribed night light, reports the BBC. The group of amateurs took to calling the light "Steve," with one joking that it's more than just a nice name but possibly also an acronym for Sudden Thermal Emission from Velocity Enhancement. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency lined up its Swarm satellite with another Steve sighting to collect data. While the light remains largely a mystery—outside of it not stemming from solar particles interacting with the Earth's magnetic field, as is the case with aurora borealis—Swarm revealed that the temperature of the arc was 5,400 degrees hotter inside the ribbon of gas than outside, and that the ribbon was moving 600 times faster than the air around it. Steve is "actually remarkably common, but we hadn't noticed it before," one ESA scientist says. "It is amazing how a beautiful natural phenomenon, seen by observant citizens, can trigger scientists' curiosity. This is a nice example of society for science." (Tourists in Iceland were caught driving under the influence of the aurora.)