Earth had new, temporary radiation rings last year
Two bands of radiation called the Van Allen belts encircle Earth. After a May 2024 solar superstorm, two more showed up between those belts.
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Fashioned after a solar superstorm, the belts lasted longer than scientists expected
The May 2024 solar storm made two new radiation belts (purple) that slotted in between the eternal Van Allen belts (varied colours) spherical Earth.
Kristen Perrin/Goddard Space Flight Heart/NASA
On May 10, 2024, the strongest solar storm in Two decades sparked auroras on Earth that were visible as far south as Florida. It additionally created two new bands of radiation across the planet, researchers listing in the February JGR Space Physics.
Earth is encircled by two donut-fashioned bands of particles called the Van Allen belts, where crammed with life protons and electrons from the sun are trapped by the planet’s magnetic self-discipline. These eternal belts are slit up into an inner one between about 6,000 and 12,000 kilometers above Earth’s surface, and an outer one between 25,000 and forty five,000 kilometers.
Between the bands is a zone called a slot field. This field is generally empty, but a non eternal third belt fashioned there for about four weeks in 2012, additionally triggered by a solar storm.
The bands in 2024 fashioned in the identical field but were surprisingly power.
“These stayed for months, till but any other even smaller storm perturbed them,” says space scientist Xinlin Li of the University of Colorado Boulder.
One band, made mostly of electrons, lasted about three months. The varied, primarily nonetheless of protons, may last for cessation to a year, Li says.
Li and colleagues had launched a minute satellite in April 2023 to investigate how the inner radiation belt forms and behaves. The satellite labored properly for a year, then with out be aware went aloof in April 2024.
“We nonetheless can’t title precisely what triggered it,” Li says. “It honest went to sleep.”
When the solar storm came a pair of month later, Li used to be distraught. “I believed, ‘Oh, why?’” he says. “Folks were excited to request the aurora in Boulder, and I didn’t care.” He honest wished the satellite had been there to grab it.
However as with out be aware as it shut off, the satellite came abet to lifestyles in June. The new belts were clearly explain. “It used to be very glaring there used to be one thing so varied,” Li says.
Long-lived belts of radiation shall be harmful to satellites and astronauts. Many satellites sure for geostationary orbits use some time in the slot zone first and shall be exposed to more charged particles than they were designed to take care of. Engineers will should account for the different of extra radiation belts in the kill, Li says.
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