AN UNUSUAL RING FORMATION IN THE RADIATION BELT AROUND THE EARTH
Since the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt in 1958, it was thought that this Earth-encircling belt consisted of two rings: an inner ring of high-energy charged electrons and energetic positive ions, and an outer ring of high-energy charged electrons.
In February of this year, scientists surprisingly discovered a third ring between the inner and outer rings.
In new research, UCLA scientists modeled this belt and discovered it exhibited unprecedented behavior. They discovered that it contained extremely energetic particles known as ultra-relativistic electrons, which behave differently than the electrons normally found in the Van Allen belt. This belt, located between 1,000 and 50,000 km from Earth, is filled with electrons so energetic that they travel at the speed of light.
"Scientists used to think that all electrons in the Van Allen belt behaved the same way, but now we see that the Van Allen belt has layers of electrons that behave differently from each other," said Yuri Shprits of UCLA's Department of Earth and Space Science.
Source:
Science Daily-Formation of Unusual Ring of Radiation Around Earth Explained
- Yuri Y. Shprits, Dmitriy Subbotin, Alexander Drozdov, Maria E. Usanova, Adam Kellerman, Ksenia Orlova, Daniel N. Baker, Drew L. Turner, Kyung-Chan Kim. Unusual stable trapping of the ultrarelativistic electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts. Nature Physics, 2013; DOI:10.1038/nphys2760
