Understanding Superstorms by Harnessing the Power of Aurorasaurus Open Citizen Science

Citizen scientists fill crucial gaps in advancing our understanding of space weather by contributing valuable observational data that complement traditional scientific methods. This poster presents ongoing efforts to clean, verify, and publish citizen science data collected through the Aurorasaurus participatory science project, ensuring readiness for scientific use. Focusing on major auroral events such as the 2024 geomagnetic superstorms, our work establishes protocols to enhance the quality and accessibility of these crowd-sourced observations.

In addition, the Eclipse to Aurora Winter Field School, held in Fairbanks, Alaska, provided a transformative opportunity to supplement this effort by incorporating student-led optical and magnetometer measurements alongside citizen science auroral observations. Students and community members demonstrated collecting scientifically valuable data that support the intercalibration of diverse datasets. Together, these efforts highlight the agility and potential of citizen science to provide impactful contributions to heliophysics education and space weather research.

By cleaning and analyzing thousands of citizen science reports and integrating them with heliophysics datasets, we further demonstrate the reliability and scientific value of crowd-sourced observations during large, rare events at unusually low latitudes. This poster details our methodologies for data verification, the unique challenges of handling heterogeneous crowd-sourced data, and how citizen scientists and students contribute to advancing our understanding of rare superstorms with new technologies.