Lena Mielke Ph.D. Candidate - Arctic Geophysics lenam@unis.no B322 Arctic geophysics Project involvements active Aurora-like fragments: From fascinating discovery to understanding The goal of this project is to investigate the causes of newly discovered aurora-like features known as "fragments" using radar, optical measurements, and photographs from citizen scientists. The project seeks to understand the plasma instabilities driving these phenomena and assess their impact on satellite drag, GPS accuracy, and radio signal disruptions. active ARCTICS: Auroral Research Coordination Towards Internationalised Citizen Science The ARCTICS ISSI Working Group aims at coordinating the citizen science efforts in space physics and aeronomy at international level. It gathers together experts in auroral processes, ionospheric dynamics, substorm physics, as well as citizen scientists from various parts of the world. We will investigate unexplained optical signatures recorded by citizen scientists by studying events presenting suitable conjunctions with ground-based and satellite observations. We plan to have two one-week meetings in Bern, allowing citizen scientists to participate online as external collaborators, as well as regular online meetings. The expected outputs of this project are: (i) peer-reviewed scientific research papers; (ii) a review article on citizen science in space physics and aeronomy; (iii) a Handbook for Citizen Scientists providing tips and guidelines to maximise the usability of the photographers’ images and showcase other possible forms of involvement; (iv) a living dataset listing events identified by citizen scientists around the world.
