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REPORT ABUSIVE MESSAGE
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Subject
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Our Plasma Atmosphere - The Van Allen Belts
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Swinging on Spirals |
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Our day-to-day lives exist in what physicists would call an electrically neutral environment. Desks, books, chairs and bodies don't generally carry electricity and they don't stick to magnets. But life on Earth is substantially different from, well, almost everywhere else. Beyond Earth's protective atmosphere and extending all the way through interplanetary space, electrified particles dominate the scene. Indeed, 99% of the universe is made of this electrified gas, known as plasma.
Two giant donuts of this plasma surround Earth, trapped within a region known as the Van Allen Radiation Belts. The belts lie close to Earth, sandwiched between satellites in geostationary orbit above and satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) are generally below the belts.
Plasmas seethe with complex movement. They generally flow along a skeletal structure made of invisible magnetic field lines, while simultaneously creating more magnetic fields as they move.
While the most immediate practical need for studying the radiation belts is to understand the space weather system near Earth and to protect humans and precious electronics in space from geomagnetic storms, there is another reason scientists are interested in this area.
It is the closest place to study the material, plasma, that pervades the entire universe. Understanding this environment so foreign to our own is crucial to understanding the make up of every star and galaxy in outer space. [ link to www.spacedaily.com]
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