Feras Natsheh Presents on Open Citizen Science at Space Weather Workshop 2025

Feras Natsheh Presents on Open Citizen Science at Space Weather Workshop 2025

Feras Natsheh, a post-baccalaureate research intern at the New Mexico Consortium, recently presented his work on open citizen science at the Space Weather Workshop 2025, held March 17-21, 2025 in Boulder, Colorado. The title of his poster was “Understanding the Gannon Storm by Harnessing the Power of Aurorasaurus Open Citizen Science.”

Citizen science is the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research and makes impactful contributions to space weather in the form of valuable observational data that compliments traditional scientific methods. Aurorasaurus, a NASA and NSF funded project, crowdsources observations of the aurora worldwide. The Earth is currently at solar maximum, with heightened solar activity, and 2024 had two major geomagnetic storms in May (the Gannon storm) and in October. These storms were major storms captured by digital cameras, producing many astonishing auroral displays at unusually low latitudes.

Part of Natsheh’s role with Aurorasaurus has been to clean and analyze thousands of unique citizen science reports collected from the two major storms last year. His presentation detailed his methodology, findings, and future work. The analysis shows the distribution of reports, reflecting population bias, and the breakdown of data types. It also reflects sustained public engagement with our project, evident through the many reports coming in past the storm peak.

Natsheh is currently working with his supervisors towards publishing this dataset for scientific use, along with an advanced analysis that aids open science data exploration.

Natsheh reports that he left Boulder feeling inspired, having had meaningful conversations, built connections, and sparked potential collaborations. He is grateful for the opportunity to represent Aurorasaurus and the NMC and share his work with such an engaged and passionate community.

To learn more about his work see his poster presentation at Understanding the Gannon Storm by Harnessing the Power of Aurorasaurus Open Citizen Science.