New purple aurora light spotted

Scientists have recently spotted a new feature in the northern lights, and named it ‘Steve’. Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary said that he saw something he had never seen before in images shared by a Facebook group called ‘Alberta Aurora Chasers’.

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, Professor Donovan knew this had to be something else.

The group decided that the mysterious object should be called 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, “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.”

“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.”

ESA’s Swarm mission scientist, Roger Haagmans, added, “It is amazing how a beautiful natural phenomenon, seen by observant citizens, can trigger scientists’ curiosity.”

Jeans come pre-caked with mud for $425

The Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans from fashion company PRPS are priced at $425 on Nordstrom’s website, which says the ‘heavily distressed’ jeans “embody rugged, Americana workwear that’s seen some hard-working action with a crackled, caked-on muddy coating that shows you’re not afraid to get down and dirty.”

A PRPS customer service representative said the muddy coating is designed not to wash out if the care instructions — “machine wash cold, line dry” — are followed properly.

The jeans have drawn criticism on social media as well as on Nordstrom’s website. Nordstrom previously raised the Internet’s eyebrows with “Clear Knee Mom Jeans,” with clear plastic windows in the knee area.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 13th, 2017