The largest solar storm in two decades hit Earth in May 2024. For several days, wave after wave of high-energy charged particles from the sun rocked the planet. Brilliant auroras engulfed the ...

Shaped like two enormous donuts, the Van Allen belts are a big, energetic stew of charged particles that encircle Earth. The particles of the outer belt come from the sun by means of solar wind and ...

The discovery of the new belts, made possible by NASA’s Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment (CIRBE) satellite and published on 6 February 2025, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space ...

Just beyond low-Earth orbit, the planet is surrounded by radiation belts sometimes called the Van Allen belts after astrophysicist James Van Allen who described them in 1958. "The Earth’s ...

The May 2024 solar storm created two extra radiation belts, sandwiched between the two permanent Van Allen Belts. One of the new belts, shown in purple, included a population of protons, giving it ...

The impact of the Van Allen belts is just the first level of understanding that needs to be achieved. Polaris Dawn was a five-day mission into space, the first such flight by private astronauts.

Two regions of radiation, called the Van Allen belts, surround Earth. “Currently we are working on final data evaluation for Helga and Zohar, and the full data set will come out in the next ...

An instrument aboard the CIRBE CubeSat is using advanced detection techniques and leveraging an orbit with specific characteristics to increase our understanding of the Van Allen belts Designed and ...

Understanding the Van Allen Belts Discovered in 1958 by physicist James Van Allen, the Van Allen belts are regions of intense radiation surrounding Earth, held by its magnetic field. These belts ...

SpaceX's trailblazing Polaris Dawn mission will soon begin its daring trek into Earth orbit — and with it, the plunge through the belt of radiation wrapped around our planet.

It will also orbit Earth through regions of a highly-charged belt of radiation. There are two of these "Van Allen Belts", an inner and an outer one.