What We Do
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:
- Space weather can be detected in real time on social media
- Auroras can be visible further south than modeling predicts
- Building citizen scientist reports into space weather alerts makes them more accurate
- Crowdsourced verification of citizen science observations works
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
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!
- Try out NASA’s suite of Citizen Science Projects
- Find a project to take part in at SciStarter
- Check out the projects available through the NASA Space Science Education Consortium (NSSEC)
- Track light pollution with GLOBE At Night
- Observe the solar system with Radio JOVE
- Find the quietest places in your community with Silent Earth
- Explore the ionosphere through ham radio with HamSCI
With Gratitude
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.