Two doughnut-shaped regions of charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field, extending from about 1,000 to 60,000 kilometers above the surface. These radiation belts pose hazards to spacecraft and astronauts.
Named after American physicist James Van Allen who discovered them in 1958 using data from the first U.S. satellites, Explorer 1 and 3. The discovery was one of the first major scientific findings of the Space Age.
The Van Allen belts act like a cosmic particle accelerator around Earth! Particles can be trapped for years, bouncing between magnetic poles and gaining energy, creating a natural laboratory for studying plasma physics that extends thousands of kilometers above us.
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