These magnetic fields can trap particles from the solar wind and other sources, creating belts of magnetic particles such as the Van Allen radiation belt.
32.
The Van Allen Probes consist of twin spacecraft studying the extreme and dynamic regions of space known as the Van Allen Radiation Belts that surround Earth.
33.
Both the Soviet Union and the Van Allen radiation belts by Explorer 1 and the defining of mid-ocean submarine ridges, an important confirmation of plate tectonics.
34.
The first of these reached an altitude of only around, serendipitously gathering data that established the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts before reentering Earth's atmosphere.
35.
Electrons and ions in the magnetosphere, for example, will bounce back and forth between the stronger fields at the poles, leading to the Van Allen radiation belts.
36.
While The Earth's outer radiation belts were detected during the flight, its Tral-D tape recorder failed, so it was unable to map the Van Allen radiation belt.
37.
Space historian Roger Bilstein reported that for physicists the Pegasus missions provided additional knowledge about the radiation environments of space, the Van Allen radiation belts and other phenomena.
38.
The Van Allen radiation belts are symmetrical about the Earth's magnetic axis, which is tilted with respect to the Earth's rotational axis by an angle of approximately 11 degrees.
39.
Engineers also launched sounding rockets so physicists could study the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions and the nature of the recently discovered Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth.
40.
Apart from catastrophic failure of the launch vehicle itself other safety hazards include depressurisation, and the Van Allen radiation belts which preclude orbits which spend long periods within them.
