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posted by janrinok on Sunday December 15 2019, @01:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the make-him-wear-suspenders-then dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

And now for this evening's space weather report. We've got a hotspot of satellite-wrecking 'killer electrons' in the outer Van Allen belt...

Scientists have discovered a dangerous hotspot in Earth's Van Allen radiation belts that spews so-called "killer electrons" that can knacker satellites and spacecraft.

Our home world is surrounded by two donut-shaped Van Allen radiation belts teeming with electrically charged particles. The inner belt stretches from 400 to 6,000 miles above our planet's surface, and the outer one ranges from 8,400 to 36,000 miles out.

The electrons and protons in the belts are tiny in size, though they pack a sizable punch as they zoom around close to the speed of light. Any satellites that fly through the belts are pelted by the particles, which can damage any on-board electrical equipment, such as sensors and cameras.

Killer electrons [in] these belts pose an even greater risk: their energies run up to millions of electron volts, which can completely frazzle or kill passing spacecraft.

Now, physicists led by boffins at Nagoya University, Japan, have homed in on one region in particular of the belts that produces these killer electrons.

"An important topic in space weather science is understanding the dynamics of killer electrons in the Van Allen radiation belt," Yoshizumi Miyoshi, a professor at the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research at Nagoya University, said this week. "The results of this study will improve the modelling and lead to more accurate forecasting of killer electrons in Van Allen radiation belts."

The [scientists] found this killer-electron hotspot by analyzing readings from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Arase satellite and NASA's Van Allen Probes. This hotspot pumps out accelerated electron fluxes with energies from 500,000 to 2 million electron volts, according to a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Remote Detection of Drift Resonance Between Energetic Electrons and Ultralow Frequency Waves: Multisatellite Coordinated Observation by Arase and Van Allen Probes, Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2019GL084379)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @01:51AM (#932236)

    Everything in Australia is out to kill you, even the electrons.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @04:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @04:02AM (#932278)

      If it's over USA, Trump will build a wall on the belt to keep those dirty satellite wrecking electrons out.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @04:36AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @04:36AM (#932287)

    An older acquaintance once worked in Van Allen's lab (in a junior position). Once he understood how much radiation was in the Van Allen belts he immediately decided that no human could pass through and live without massive & heavy shielding--thus he still feels that the Apollo moon missions were all faked...

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 15 2019, @04:43AM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday December 15 2019, @04:43AM (#932290) Journal

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt#Flux_values [wikipedia.org]

      Radiation levels in the belts would be dangerous to humans if they were exposed for an extended period of time. The Apollo missions minimised hazards for astronauts by sending spacecraft at high speeds through the thinner areas of the upper belts, bypassing inner belts completely, except for the Apollo 14 mission where the spacecraft traveled through the heart of the trapped radiation belts.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @12:31PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @12:31PM (#932344)

        That doesn't even make sense, how did they bypass the innr belt completely? You need to pass through it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @05:57PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @05:57PM (#932429)

          From the illustration here, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/studying-the-van-allen-belts-60-years-after-america-s-first-spacecraft [nasa.gov] it looks like the dense part of the inner belt is only over equatorial regions, thus launching from Florida might be far enough north to miss most of the inner belt??

          Just a guess--anyone with more info please comment.

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday December 16 2019, @03:35AM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday December 16 2019, @03:35AM (#932670) Homepage
            From the 2nd paragraph of TFS: "two donut-shaped Van Allen radiation belts".
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 15 2019, @02:40PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 15 2019, @02:40PM (#932372) Journal

      In the '60's, the moon landing was fake. Today, everything is fake. We've come a long way, Baby!

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