Let's move up into the atmosphere. Way up to where the auroras dance across our skies.
In order to track the appearance of auroras across the globe, NASA supports a citizen science project
called Aurorasaurus, where volunteers submit reports and photographs through a mobile app
and website. With all of this data from users around the planet, researchers are able to learn
more about this mysterious and dazzling phenomenon. I'm joined by NASA scientist, Dr. Elizabeth MacDonald
and citizen scientist, Donna Lach. Thank you so much for joining us. Hi, thank you for including me.
Hi, thanks. Of course, so Elizabeth why is it an important area of research to have these
citizen scientists contribute regarding auroras? Yeah, so auroras affect our technologies on Earth
and in the sky in satellites and they move really quickly and it's important
to get an understanding of what they're doing even when they're really quiet or really large
and citizen scientists can really help with that. Amazing, so Donna you are a citizen
scientist with this project. Can you kind of walk us through what contributing looks like?
Sure, it's what Aurorasaurus wants is our observations from the ground wherever we are. So we
are their boots on the ground eyes to the sky, and it starts with me watching the forecast for the
aurora and the solar activity, listening to the chatter on Twitter and our Facebook groups, and
when the conditions are right and the sky is clear, I head out with my camera and I will take pictures
of the aurora, and after that I will report by going online to aurorasaurus or on their their
app but we would give them our observations and upload a photo of what we saw on the ground.
Wow and Elizabeth how does that help you with your research? Well knowing exactly what time it was
and where the person was when they saw the aurora allows us to put all of those different
images together along with our traditional observations and understand the phenomena
in more depth. What kind of discoveries have citizen scientists made with this project? So one
big one is something called STEVE which is actually an aurora that can be seen further
away from the poles than the usual aurora. So overhead over Southern Canada and the Northern U.S.
and it's very unusual it kind of looks like an airplane condensation trail, but with a photograph
you can pick up these amazing colors as well and by studying it further with satellite data
and other data from the ground we've discovered it's it's really like a flow driven aurora. It's
an east to west flow that is lighting up the sky and doing some amazing kind of new unusual
auroral activity that's still being studied now. Wow that is amazing! So I've only seen auroras in
in videos and images. What is it like to to see it firsthand? From my latitude in Southern Manitoba,
it just looks like a white light maybe with a green tint to it when it's active then sometimes
I can see the pink fringe along the bottom and sometimes I can also see the red that goes high
above but most of the time it's only about 30 degrees above the horizon where I am. Once in a
while, it will go overhead and it starts with just a low band if we hit a get to a substorm
then it will start dancing for about 30 seconds to about 20 minutes and that's the very exciting part
that we want to photograph and after that is a very subtle pulsating yeah pulsating aurora
that is difficult to actually see with the eyes but the camera can really capture it beautifully.
That is just amazing, and so we only have a couple seconds left but could you
how do you have a couple pieces of advice for people that want to get involved?
I would say please join us because it's a very exciting thing to be involved with to be
able to report and share what I see. I'm not a scientist, I don't have a great camera, I don't
I'm not a professional but I can be involved in something that's really important and right now
in this time of social distancing, we're looking for something to do outside and we can do this
on our own. We don't need to worry about social distancing and we can link arms with
everyone across the globe to be a part of something very exciting like this.
Yeah, virtually we can get together and also it's really a great bridge between the
public and the scientific community and it spurs a lot of great communication and questions
about what we're seeing. So yeah, we encourage people to join us be patient the Sun. We have to
wait for the Sun and the sky to be clear, and that can take a while but you can join our community
and learn more in the meantime so everyone is welcome. Awesome, thank you both so much. Thank you!