Thanks to the tremendous technological improvement of commercial cameras and smartphones, together with the enhanced geomagnetic activity of the past few years, a growing number of auroral photographers capture high-quality images of the night sky. This novel type of optical data has enabled the discovery of previously unknown optical emission displays which reveal the presence of complex and unexplored processes at work in Earth’s upper atmosphere and magnetosphere. Those discoveries are the result of what is known as “citizen science”, i.e. scientific research involving contributors outside the academic world who provide data and can be co-authors of the resulting publications. Typically, auroral citizen science has combined aurora chasers’ pictures with observations from ground-based instruments and satellites, thus requiring a multidisciplinary approach, a broad range of expertise and skills, as well as efficient communication across the academic researcher and citizen scientist communities.
During the two years of its activity supported by ISSI, the ARCTICS (Auroral Research Coordination: Towards Internationalised Citizen Science) Working Group has striven to establish a solid collaboration between academic researchers from Europe and North America and citizen scientists from Europe, North America, and Oceania to investigate optical emission forms associated with auroral activity, such as STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement), dune aurora (wave-like patterns in the dim, diffuse green aurora), fragmented aurora-like emissions (FAE, small-scale green emission structures appearing near auroral arcs), and GHOST (Geomagnetically-driven High-bandwidth Optical Spectra from the Thermosphere, also called “continuum emissions”).
The Working Group not only carried out scientific studies on those optical phenomena leading to several peer-reviewed publications (listed below), but also aimed to widen the international network of researchers and citizen scientists in auroral physics and to propose an example of fruitful and respectful collaboration within the framework of citizen science. In addition to nine peer-reviewed articles published by the end of ARCTICS’s formal existence (September 2023 to December 2025), the Working Group has produced a set of open-access resources to support auroral citizen science: the Aurora Field Guide & Handbook for Citizen Science. The support provided by ISSI was instrumental in establishing a durable and productive collaboration, which is expected to keep bearing fruit in the years to come.