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What We Do

The map shows an aurora storm on March 6, 2016. Citizen scientists reported seeing aurora in the midlands of England, the north coast of the Netherlands, and areas in the United States such as Maine, New York, Minnesota and North Dakota. The green, yellow and red areas show the current oval estimate. Green plus signs mean positive sightings. Blue Twitter icons mean verified tweets.

The map shows an aurora storm on March 6, 2016. Citizen scientists reported seeing aurora in the midlands of England, the north coast of the Netherlands, and areas in the United States such as Maine, New York, Minnesota and North Dakota. The green, yellow and red areas show the current oval estimate. Green plus signs mean positive sightings. Blue Twitter icons mean verified tweets.

Aurorasaurus is the first and only citizen science initiative that tracks auroras around the world via reports on our website and social media. All aurora-related tweets and reports are placed on the Aurorasaurus.org map. We then ask people to log in and verify the tweets or reports. Each verified report serves as a valuable data point for scientists to analyze and incorporate into space weather models. 

Over the last decade, citizen scientists have helped us establish that:

In addition, our project collaborated with citizen scientists from the Alberta Aurora Chasers and other scientists on the discovery, analysis, and publication of the subauroral phenomenon STEVE. 

Who We Are

From top to bottom, left to right: Dr. Liz MacDonald, Laura Brandt, Hannahbella Nel, Dr. Michael Hunnekuhl, Asher Pembroke, Hugo Sanchez, Valerie Svaldi, and Chris Ratzlaff. Photo credits: Aurorasaurus, Hannahbella Nel, and Hugo Sanchez.

From top to bottom, left to right: Dr. Liz MacDonald, Laura Brandt, Hannahbella Nel, Dr. Michael Hunnekuhl, Asher Pembroke, Hugo Sanchez, Valerie Svaldi, and Chris Ratzlaff. Photo credits: Aurorasaurus, Hannahbella Nel, and Hugo Sanchez.

The Aurorasaurus Team: Dr. Liz MacDonald, Founder; Dr. Matt Heavner, NMC Lead; Laura Brandt, Project Manager

We’re hiring a postdoc! Click here to find out more!

Aurorasaurus Ambassadors: Jason Ahrns, Notanee Bourassa, Dr. Trey Cade, Dr. Brett Carter, Dr. Nathan Case, Dr. Yaireska “Yari” Collado-Vega, Dr. Mike Cook, Aaluk Edwardson, Dr. Don Hampton, Dr. Matt Heavner, Tracy Holland, Sara Housseal, Tony Iampietro, Dr. Allison Jaynes, Dr. Burcu Kosar, Jeremy Kuzub, Donna Lach, Vincent Ledvina, Dr. Michael Liemohn, Caleigh MacPherson, Hannahbella Nel, Dr. Laura Peticolas, Dr. Craig Pollock, Lynn Powers, Chris Ratzlaff, Dr. Patricia Reiff, Dr. Joe Shaw, Dr. Kristine Sigsbee, Dr. Andrea Grover, Amanda Young, Debs Gardner, Holly Davison, Brie Hawkins, Dr. Gunjan Sinha, Dr. Michael Hunnekuhl, Andy Witteman, Justin Anderson, Wil Cheung, Aaron Slonecker, Elodie Chabrol, Josh Semeter, Hugo Sanchez, Dr. José Francisco Salgado, Dr. Carlos Martinis, Kasha Patel, Rocky Raybell, Chandresh Kedhambadi, Becca Robinson

Ambassadors are volunteers who help share Aurorasaurus with their local communities and communities of interest. Join us and help make new discoveries! Please get in touch with us at aurorasaurus.info@gmail.com if you are interested.

Find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blog

For Aurorasaurus citizen scientists and friends to enjoy as a community-building initiative, Aurorasaurus has a print-on-demand site where you can get your own logo gear. Items are listed at cost only. Have fun and tag @TweetAurora in your photos!

Join In

Love community science? Check out these projects!

With Gratitude

Rows of smiling people sit at a bowling alley

The Aurorasaurus team in 2015

Aurorasaurus is a research project that is a public-private partnership with the New Mexico Consortium supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA (NSSEC), and was designed by researchers from the New Mexico Consortium, NASA, Penn State University,  Science Education Solutions, and Ideum. Space physics real-time data are provided by the Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA., Thanks to Twitter for providing relevant tweets from their search API.

We are grateful to past collaborators, including: Yan Cao, Dr. Nathan Case, Dr. Molly Cernicek, Dr. Jessica Clayton, Dr. Romeo Durscher, Dr. Sean Goggins, Dr. Michelle Hall, Dr. Matthew Heavner, Dr. Josef Koller, Nick LaLone, Michael Mayhew, Kasha Patel, Dr. Laura Peticolas, Reid Priedhorsky, Dr. Andrea Tapia, Niels van Hecke, and Dr. Andrea Wiggins.

 

If you need assistance, please feel free to contact us at aurorasaurus.info@gmail.com with any questions. “Leave a Reply” below is to post comments on this page, and is only periodically monitored.

 

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