Electron acceleration occurs in the heart of the radiation
belts
Two University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues have
advanced scientists’ knowledge of the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts by
answering a long-standing question about the belts.
Craig Kletzing and William Kurth of the UI Department of
Physics and Astronomy note that since 1958 when UI space physicist James A. Van
Allen discovered the doughnut-shaped bands of intense radiation encircling the
Earth, scientists have wondered just how and where electrons trapped within the
belts get their ultra-high energies.