Scientists Learn More about Mysterious 3rd Van Allen Belt
New research provides insight into the mysterious Van Allen radiation belts. There are normally two of these giant bands of high-energy radiation encircling the Earth. However, researchers discovered a third and previously unknown radiation ring that only lasted for about a month back in September 2012. Writing in a recent edition of Nature Physics, scientists from UCLA […]
Third Radiation Belt Discovered Around Earth
NASA scientists have discovered a third radiation belt briefly surrounded Earth for about a month before being blasted away by an interplanetary shock wave from the sun. Experts had long thought there were only two distinct regions of trapped radiation. But the third ring was spotted by twin Van Allen radiation probes NASA launched in 2012 […]