STEVE

STEVE is a special kind of light that sometimes appears in the night sky. It looks like a wavy ribbon of purple and green light. It's not a star or a planet, but something even more amazing happening way up in the air! People first noticed it and gave it this funny name a few years ago, and now scientists are learning all about it.

STEVE is made by super-hot gas, like a giant, invisible river flowing high above Earth. This gas is so hot, it's hotter than a pizza oven! It's like a speedy highway for tiny particles in space. When these particles zoom through this hot ribbon, they make the beautiful purple and green lights we can see.

This glowing ribbon of STEVE is incredibly fast! The hot gas is zooming along at about 6 kilometers every second. That's faster than a race car! It's like a super-fast train in the sky. This speed is what makes the lights glow so brightly for us to see.

STEVE is a reminder of how much we still have to discover in our world and in space. Even though it's not rare, scientists are still learning about it. It shows us that the sky holds many beautiful secrets, and sometimes, the most wonderful things are the ones we haven't fully understood yet!