NASA probes spots temporary third Van Allen radiation belt
NASA probes spots temporary third Van Allen radiation belt This'll driver the lunar deniers crazy
Posted in Science, 1st March 2013 08:11 GMT
For over fifty years schoolbooks have been teaching about the Van Allen belts, two torus-shaped zones of charged particles that encircle the Earth. Now, a NASA mission has discovered that there is a third – but only when conditions are right.
Last August, NASA fired a pair of Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) into the belts to do the most detailed study yet of their composition. The spacecraft, heavily shielded to function in the plasma belts, were scheduled to start booting up their equipment in slow and steady progression – witness how long Curiosity was on the Surface of Mars before all her systems were used.
