Earth Sun Universe ID: 11013

Mystery Belts

Story by Karen Fox | Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on July 19, 2012

NASA's first satellite, launched in 1958, discovered two giant swaths of radiation encircling Earth. Five decades later, scientists are still trying to unlock the mysteries of these phenomena known as the Van Allen Belts. As solar wind and cosmic rays carry fast-moving, highly energized particles past Earth, scientists think some of these particles become trapped by the planet's magnetic field. The resulting belts, one inner and one outer, can swell or shrink in size in response to incoming particles from Earth's upper atmosphere and changes in the solar wind. But sometimes the belts don't change when scientists expect them to. New NASA spacecraft scheduled to launch in August 2012 seek to determine what kinds of solar outbursts and other space weather cause specific changes in the radiation belts—answering some of the questions first raised decades ago. The visualization shows the belts responding to a strong, steady burst of material and energy from the sun.

This early schematic of the Van Allen Belts' structure was created after the first NASA satellite discovered their existence in 1958.

The twin spacecraft of NASA's upcoming Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission seek to determine what forces make the belts shrink and swell.

The two RBSP spacecraft will fly in extreme elliptical orbits, allowing the mission to observe changes in the belts from different perspectives.

For More Information

NASA.gov

Story Credits

Lead Visualizer/Animator:
Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)

Producer:
Genna Duberstein (USRA)

Lead Writer:
Karen Fox (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Historic image of Van Allen Belts courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11013

Keywords:
SVS >> App
NASA Science >> Earth
NASA Science >> Sun
NASA Science >> Universe