Latest Van Allen radiation belt Stories

[ Watch the Video ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new NASA mission set to launch in August 2012 called the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) will keep its eye focused on plasma. Ninety-nine percent of the universe is made of this electrified gas, but when it comes to the Earth it is more absent than present. There are two giant donuts of plasma surrounding Earth trapped within a region known as the Van Allen Radiation Belts. The belts are close to...

A trio of CubeSats that will study the effects of space weather on the Earth’s radiation belts and magnetic field are being prepared for launch. TRIO-CINEMA is a collaboration between UC Berkeley, Kyung Hee University and Imperial College London. The first CINEMA CubeSat passed acceptance testing in January 2012 and will launch in mid-2012. Two more identical spacecraft will launch towards the end of the year. The mission will be presented by Professor Tim Horbury at the National Astronomy...

A new system has been developed by British scientists that will forecast space weather in an effort to better protect satellites orbiting our planet from damaging solar storms. Led by researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the SPACECAST project is expected to provide reliable web-based forecasts so that satellite operators will be able to take action to keep their navigational, communication, and scientific satellites from the radiation that solar storms produce. Researchers...

Findings further efforts to better predict geomagnetic storms in space UCLA researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft. In a paper published today in the journal Nature Physics, the team shows that the missing electrons are swept away from the planet by a tide of solar wind particles during periods of heightened solar activity. "This is an important milestone...

Findings further efforts to better predict geomagnetic storms in space UCLA researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft. In a paper published Jan 29 in the journal Nature Physics, the team shows that the missing electrons are swept away from the planet by a tide of solar wind particles during periods of heightened solar activity. "This is an important...

On Nov. 26th, Curiosity blasted off from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas 5 rocket.  Riding a plume of fire through the blue Florida sky, the car-sized rover began a nine month journey to search for signs of life Mars. Meanwhile, 93 million miles away, a second lesser-noticed Mars launch was underway.  Around the time that Curiosity’s rocket was breaking the bonds of Earth, a filament of magnetism erupted from the sun, hurling a billion-ton cloud of plasma (a “CME”) toward the Red...

ESA’s Proba-1 recently celebrated its tenth birthday in orbit. Kept busy as an Earth-observing mission, the microsatellite has also been building a detailed picture of changes in our planet’s radiation belts. Smaller than a cubic meter, the technology-testing Proba-1 was launched on 22 October 2001. Among the payloads was ESA’s SREM standard radiation environment monitor, which was turned on a week later. The size of a shoebox, the monitor records high-energy charged particles,...

For the first time, researchers have confirmed the existence of antimatter in the Earth's magnetosphere, BBC News reported on Sunday. Writing in Astrophysical Journal Letters, the researchers report that they discovered a thin band of antiprotons lying in between the inner and outer Van Allen radiation belts using the PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics) satellite.Though the British news organization claims that only a small number of antiprotons...

The Van Allen radiation belts are a hazardous environment, full of 'killer' electrons that can be lethal to orbiting satellites. And when those electrons sometimes hit the atmosphere, they alter its chemistry with implications for climate variation. Now students at a school in Yorkshire are set to help scientists better understand the belts.Dr Andrew Kavanagh will present this innovative project between Lancaster University and Headlands School and Community Science College on Wednesday 20...