﻿ Protecting astronauts from the Van Allen radiations | ZDNet
Protecting astronauts from the Van Allen radiations  Summary: An
international team of scientists has explained the activity of
the two Van Allen radiation belts and this will help protect
astronauts and spacecrafts.  The Van Allen radiation belts are
two regions of space located about 20,000 kilometers above the
Earth and filled with energetic particles coming from solar
winds. The high energies of these particles, trapped by Earth's
magnetic field, can reach millions of electron volts, and can
represent a hazard to satellites and humans in space. Now, an
international team of scientists has explained the activity of
the two Van Allen radiation belts and this will help protect
astronauts and spacecrafts. By studying the solar storms of 2003
which disrupted GPS and communications satellites, they found
that the old theory, which stated that the electrons within the
belts were accelerated by radial diffusion, was wrong. Instead,
they discovered tha