NASA Explores High-Energy Rainfall in the Atmosphere

Our planet is nestled in the center of two doughnut-shaped regions of powerful, dynamic radiation: the Van Allen belts, where high-energy particles are trapped by Earth’s magnetic field. Depending on incoming radiation from the sun, they can gain energetic particles. On the other hand, the belts can lose energized particles too.
On Jan. 17, 2013, NASA's Van Allen Probes were in just the right position to watch the belts dramatically lose energized particles and resolve a long-standing question as to how the lower region of the belts close to Earth loses these particles. A team led by Yuri Shprits of University of California in Los Angeles published a paper summarizing these findings.
Research: Wave-induced loss of ultra-relativistic electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts
Journal: Nature Communications, September 28, 2016
Link to paper:
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Credit: NASA/Joy Ng/Martin Rother/GFZ-Potsdam
Music Credits: Translucent Nature by Anthony Phillips [PRS], Samuel Karl Bohn [PRS] from the KillerTracks catalog
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