The Van Allen Belts Are Lethal, This Is How Astronauts Fly Through Them
The radioactive Van Allen belts posed a serious challenge for space travel. NASA had to figure out a way for astronauts to fly through them without being ...
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There’s an invisible, magnetic force field surrounding our planet, protecting us from harmful solar wind that could annihilate Earth. But, this protective blanket is also a swirling ring full of deadly radiation. And to leave Earth’s atmosphere, astronauts have to pass through it. The Van Allen belts are rings of energetically charged particles that have been captured by Earth's magnetic field. They got their name from this physicist, James Van Allen. Back in the 1950s, Van Allen launched a rockoon, a rocket lifted by a balloon above the atmosphere, and it detected the first hint of radiation at higher altitudes. Then, Explorer 1, the first American satellite to orbit Earth, launched in January 13, 1958. Explorer 1 confirmed that Earth’s magnetosphere was trapping the subatomic par...
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There’s an invisible, magnetic force field surrounding our planet, protecting us from harmful solar wind that could annihilate Earth. But, this protective blanket is also a swirling ring full of deadly radiation. And to leave Earth’s atmosphere, astronauts have to pass through it. The Van Allen belts are rings of energetically charged particles that have been captured by Earth's magnetic field. They got their name from this physicist, James Van Allen. Back in the 1950s, Van Allen launched a rockoon, a rocket lifted by a balloon above the atmosphere, and it detected the first hint of radiation at higher altitudes. Then, Explorer 1, the first American satellite to orbit Earth, launched in January 13, 1958. Explorer 1 confirmed that Earth’s magnetosphere was trapping the subatomic par...
