Mysterious purple and white ribbons of light seen dancing across the sky may represent a never-before-identified type of ‘skyglow.’ While amateur photographers have been documenting the phenomenon for decades, scientists only began to study it back in 2016

STEVE was initially given its name in honor of the 2006 film Over the Hedge, and the title was later accepted in the scientific community as a ‘backronym,’ standing for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.

This type of light event appears closer to the equator than a normal aurora.

In the latest study, researchers analyzed a STEVE event that occurred over eastern Canada on March 28, 2008.

The team compared images from ground-based cameras with data from the NOAA’s Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite 17 (POES-17), which was overhead at the time and can measure charged particles raining down towards Earth.  MORE