Electrons in a Van Allen radiation belt (blue) encounter whistler waves (purple) and are sent raining toward the north pole (red). THEMIS satellites are seen near the radiation belt, while UCLA ...

Two swaths of particles surrounding Earth called the radiation belts are one of the greatest ... up to 99 percent the speed of light. The Van Allen Probes launched in August 2012, have now ...

That’s well into the inner band of Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts, which begin at around 600 miles in altitude. The belts are areas where concentrations of high-energy particles that come ...