The Earth’s magnetosphere, the area dominated by the Earth’s magnetic field and which protects us like a shield from the effects of the solar wind, absorbs and diverts all that plasma that comes from the Sun. However, when the solar wind is much more violent, solar storms can damage Earth’s electrical grids (causing billions of euros in damage) due to the intense radiation in the Van Alenn belts.
Now, a team of researchers from the University of Alberta (Canada) has demonstrated for the first time how the third Van Allen belt, discovered in 2013, is created by a “space tsunami” where extremely powerful ultra-low frequency plasma waves transport – because of the magnetosphere – the outer part of the radiation belt into interplanetary space creating this third belt, an extreme that science had not been able to explain until now.
“ Surprisingly, we observe huge plasma waves. Rather as if it were a tsunami in space, in which the radiation belts splash around, very quickly erasing the outer part of the belt, which would explain the structure of the enigmatic third radiation belt ”, explains Ian Mann, leader of the study.
Taking into account the importance of these waves to protect us from space radiation (we must not forget the satellites and what their infrastructure would jeopardize if they were hit by a space storm) this discovery represents a great advance in the understanding of threat reduction to the Earth : “Space radiation represents a danger to the functioning of the satellite infrastructure on which our technological society of the 21st century is based. Understanding how this radiation is energized and then disappears is one of the greatest challenges for space research, ”says Mann.
The appearance of the third Van Allen belt had been a puzzle for scientists , who developed increasingly complex explanatory models. However, the explanation presented by the University of Alberta team shows a very simple and elegant answer to the dynamics of Van Allen’s third belt.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Physics.
