Notes from Science Daily
All abbreviated from Science Daily:
Radiation belts:
Our day-to-day lives exist in what physicists would call an electrically neutral environment. But life on Earth is substantially different from, well, almost everywhere else...extending all the way through interplanetary space, electrified particles dominate the scene. 99% of the universe is made of this electrified gas, known as plasma.
The inner radiation belt stays largely stable, but the number of particles in the outer one can swell 100 times or more.
Plasmas seethe with complex movement. They generally flow along a skeletal structure made of invisible magnetic field lines, while simultaneously creating more magnetic fields as they move. Teasing out the rules that govern such a foreign environment...lies at the heart of understanding a range of events that make up space weather, from giant explosions on the sun to potentially damaging high energy particles in near-Earth environs.
Radiation belts:
Our day-to-day lives exist in what physicists would call an electrically neutral environment. But life on Earth is substantially different from, well, almost everywhere else...extending all the way through interplanetary space, electrified particles dominate the scene. 99% of the universe is made of this electrified gas, known as plasma.
The inner radiation belt stays largely stable, but the number of particles in the outer one can swell 100 times or more.
Plasmas seethe with complex movement. They generally flow along a skeletal structure made of invisible magnetic field lines, while simultaneously creating more magnetic fields as they move. Teasing out the rules that govern such a foreign environment...lies at the heart of understanding a range of events that make up space weather, from giant explosions on the sun to potentially damaging high energy particles in near-Earth environs.