Was it the Northern Lights or Steve?

Over has been dazzled this week with beautiful displays of the Northern Lights.

Those who were late to bed and found themselves staring up to the skies were rewarded with several long viewings of this previously rare sight.

A more recent scientific discovery, Steve, was also visible across the UK this week. Steve (or in full: Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) – is unpredictable and only lasts for a short time during an aurora display. Steve appears as a ribbon and scientists suggest Scientists suggests it comprises a fast-moving stream of extremely hot particles called a sub-auroral ion drift, or SAID.

Now, a few facts (source: BBC News):

The Northern Lights – or aurora borealis – appear as bright, swirling curtains of lights in the night sky and range in colour from green to pink and scarlet.

The lowest part of an aurora is typically 50 miles (80 km) above the Earth’s surface. The highest part could be 150 miles (800km) above the Earth.

The Northern Lights are caused by charged particles from the sun hitting gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

They occur around the North Pole when the solar wind carrying the particles interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field.

What used to be a once-in-a-lifetime event for people to see it in the UK has become more common in the last couple of years due to the Sun reaching a “maximum” in its 11-year cycle. During this maximum, the number of sunspots increases, which leads to more coronal mass ejections (the Sun expelling superheated plasma and magnetic fields) sending charged particles to Earth, creating the aurora.

Beautiful!