What Is the Van Allen Belt?
A n American physicist called Van Allen who studied space satellites for many years arrived at the conclusion that the reason life on earth is not destroyed by radiation from the sun is due to two belts that sur round the earth. They are believed to trap dangerous particles of protons and electrons, which come from the sun’s gases.
— Claude L. A. It is a band of dangerous radiation high above Earth. The Van Allen radiation belt is a region of protons and electrons surrounding Earth, held captive by our planet’s magnetic field. Actually, there are three or four such belts. The first belt we knew of was encountered by the first American space satellite, the 18-lb. Explorer 1 launched in 1958. Van Allen. Explorer was built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. It carried cosmic ray Geiger counters built at the University of Iowa by physicist James Van Allen and graduate student Wei Ching Lin. Van Allen’s science package inside the tiny satellite discovered the previously-unknown radiation belt around our planet. The region was named the Van Allen Belt and was recognized as the greatest science contribution of the International Geophysical Year 1958. More belts. There actually are three, and sometimes four, radiation belts surrounding Earth. Taken together, they often are referred to as the Van Alle
Dr. James Van Allen, an American physicist, had been studying space satellites for many years, and in 1958 he came to the conclusion that the reason life on earth is not destroyed by radiation from the sun is due to two belts that surround the earth. These belts, named after Dr. Van Allen, are actually like doughnuts around the
