The Van Allen Belt

Essay by alio240High School, 10th gradeA-, February 2006

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The Van Allen radiation belt is a doughnut form of energetic charged particles these are mostly protons and electrons which are located around the Earth and which is trapped by its magnetic field. There are two main sources , the first one is the inner belt some call it the Van Allen radiation belt because it was dicovered by a man called James Van Allen in 1958 which studied at the University of Iowa. This is thought to be located and trapped about 4000 miles down in the earth's surface.

The place in The Van Allen radiation belt is occiopied by tons of protons which energies from the range of ten to one hundred Mev , this is enough to damage eletronical appliencies which could be very dangerous for many others , damage many instruments which are very impotant and can leave you out in space forever, and this could be very hazardous to a astronaut which could be life threatining and is just not good for the person.

The outer radiation belt is trapped in the plasma of the magnetosphere. The plasma population is usually applied to the energetic part of the name that is radiation belt. There is about one Mev. of energy in this outer radiation belt which is outside some away from the inner radiation belt. There are sometimes some magnetic storms that accour because of something that is called a ring current which is known as many lower - energy particles. There is about an energy of circa 0.05 MeV of energy and there is energetic electrons which are found all over the places.

There are electrons and protons which are created in the earth's magnetic field which produce the polar aurora or in other words which is common in northern Norway the northern...