The PAMELA spacecraft's view of the Van Allen radiation belts
September 4, 2009 | 7:15 am
Two rings of highly energetic charged particles encircle the earth, trapped in its magnetic field. The inner ring, made up mostly of protons, hovers about 500 miles above our heads. The outer ring is mostly made up of electrons.
These radiation belts are named for astrophysicist James Van Allen, who first discovered them. Though the Van Allen belts are invisible to the naked eye, an instrument called PAMELA gives physicists an idea what they would look like.
The Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics, or PAMELA, telescope was launched in June 2006 from Kazakhstan in part to study the radiation belts. Its goals are to search for dark matter, baryon asymmetry, and the source of cosmic rays. Marco Casolino, a researcher at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Rome, described the instrument in a talk at the Physics in Collision conference in Kobe, Japan, this week.
To illustrate its capabilities, he showed the following fascinating animation:
PAMELA’s view of the Van Allen belts
The video gives a tour of the Van Allen belts, as measured with PAMELA spectrometer on board Russian satellite Resurs-DK1. Measurements are between 600 and 370 km and are shown to scale.
Kathryn Grim
Posted in This Conference Life |
4 Comments »
September 4th, 2009 at 9:45 am
what does this show?
not sure what kinda of radiation
September 6th, 2009 at 6:03 am
I consider myself reasonably scientifically literate having worked in a university physics Department for a number of years. I’m afraid the pretty graphics do absolutely nothing for the understanding. I found that incomprehensible.
September 7th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I would assume that if the van allen belts are related to there being an inner sphere of protons, and an outer sphere of electrons, then the shades of red around the globe would be the intensity (the net charge density distribution) as it changes across time and geographic “space”
replies taken at kumarjavvaji@gmail.com
September 8th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Van Allen belts consist of radiation trapped in the magnetic field of the Earth. The closest, at lower altitude and at the equator, is composed by protons (10-1000 MeV), the farthest away (higer latitude and/or higher altitude, up to geostationary orbit) is composed by electrons.
The movie should show a part of the proton and electron belts seen at the lowest altitudes, some hundred kms. Colour represent intensity of radiation.