A group of aurora enthusiasts have found a new type of light in the night sky and title it Steve
He did not notice it as a catalogued anomaly and though the group were calling it a proton arc, he knew proton auroras were not detectable.
Measurement showed it arise to be a hot stream of fast-flowing gas in the higher reaches of the atmosphere.
The European Space Agency sent electric field apparatus to measure it 300km above the surface of the Earth and found the temperature of the air was 3,000C hotter inner the gas stream than outside it.
Approximately little else is known about the big purple light as yet but it appears it is not an aurora as it does not stem from the communication of solar particles with the Earth's hypnotic field.
There are announcement that the group called it Steve in homage to a 2006 children's film, Over the Hedge, where the characters give the name to a creature they have not seen ahead.
Roger Haagmans of the ESA said that it is amazing how a beautiful natural anomaly, seen by observant citizens, can trigger scientists concern.
I think that it turns out that Steve is actually awfully common, but we hadn't noticed it before. It's thanks to ground-based consideration, satellites, today's explosion of access to data and an army of citizen scientists joining forces to document it.