Friday, March 01, 2013

NASA's discovery of third radiation belt around Earth will mean 'rewriting textbooks'

NASA's discovery of third radiation belt around Earth will mean 'rewriting textbooks': van allen belts 1020








Scientists used to think that the Van Allen belts — two nested rings of charged particles surrounding the Earth — bulge and swell in response to what’s happening on the sun, but are otherwise more or less fixed in place. Well, according to a new finding announced by NASA, the rings are actually much more malleable than originally thought. New data shows their structure reconfigured in response to a major coronal mass ejection (pictured below), for the first time revealing the formation of a third belt. In its press release, NASA said the discovery would require "rewriting textbooks."
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