A Look at the Advancements Made Through Research, Education, Outreach and Social Media in the Space Weather Community

The citizen science project known as Aurorasaurus, has now been operating and collecting data for two years. Two years worth of data has allowed us to make new discoveries and advancements throughout the space weather field. On the research end of things, Aurorasaurus has been able to help determine the accuracy of and improve SWPC’s OVATION Prime model “viewline” of auroral visibility. We concluded that the current SWPC viewline estimate was conservative and that an aurora was often visible further equatorward than estimated. Another crucial part of this project is educating the public. Aurorasaurus publishes educational blog posts, infographics and even creates quizzes for our community to take on our website. We educate the public on the basics of space weather and try to break down the scientific jargon. Aurorasaurus is the first to demonstrate Twitter can be a tool for mapping and tracking the aurora. Our study showed that the number of aurora-related tweets correlated well with several different indicators of auroral activity. We have also have done outreach events in person and online through Tweetchats, Reddit, and more.