Alberta man nets NASA award for work on 'new type of auroral phenomena' called STEVE

Airdrie aurora chaser Chris Ratzlaff has netted an excellence in science award from NASA for collaborative work on identifying a phenomenon known as "STEVE" — a ribbon of mauve light that sometimes appears with the aurora borealis.

Ratzlaff and other participants in a research paper, many of whom are fellow members of a local group called Alberta Aurora Chasers, have received an Exceptional Achievement for Science Award for "outstanding discovery and characterization of STEVE, a new type of auroral phenomena, as a ground-breaking example of citizen science." 

Ratzlaff told the Calgary Eyeopener that getting an award from NASA was understandably thrilling.

"That's pretty wild," he said. "I mean as a kid I only I've only been a fan of NASA so to be able to receive an award from that organization is pretty awesome."

Ratzlaff was quick to note that he was not alone in making the discovery.

"People around the world really participated in this discovery," he said. "It was something that the Alberta Aurora Chasers community brought to researchers at the University of Calgary and at NASA, and asked them what it was, and they didn't know."

STEVE is an acronym for "strong thermal emission velocity enhancement." The name started as a joke.

"STEVE is a something that I proposed as a conversation starter," Ratzlaff said. " It was really meant to be something kind of ridiculous to get the conversation started. And it stuck."

Ratzlaff first saw STEVE in the summer of 2014, while photographing strong aurora near Calgary.

STEVE has since become a bit of a big deal, even being included as part of a $20 silver coin from the Royal Canadian Mint.

So, what is STEVE, if not an aurora?

"They haven't quite figured that out yet. They're still working on it. There's a lot of active research going on at the U of C," Ratzlaff said.

"They're getting a lot closer. They know what it isn't. They know that it doesn't behave quite like traditional aurora. It's got a lot of different properties to it, and so they're narrowing it down."

Ratzlaff said researchers are still calling on the Alberta sky-gazing community of scientists and photographers to bring them more data and help the process along.

"They've narrowed it down to the point where they can spot it on satellite and their ground equipment, but our cameras are still taking better pictures than a lot of the equipment that they're using, so they use our cameras to get some of that visual material," he said.

He said most of the time, it's difficult to spot STEVE with the naked eye, and that it will look like an airplane contrail at night. But photographers love STEVE because, unlike the dancing aurora borealis, it stays steady in the night sky.

Earlier this year, Ratzlaff joined David Suzuki for a Nature of Things documentary exploring the mysteries behind the  phenomenon called STEVE.