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the radiation belt storm probes

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presented by science at nasa

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since the dawn of the space age mission

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planners have tried to follow one simple

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but important rule

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stay out of the van allen belts

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the two donut shaped regions around

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earth are filled with killer electrons

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plasma waves and electrical currents

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dangerous to human space travelers in

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their spacecraft lingering there is not

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a good idea

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so much for the old rules

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nasa has launched two spacecraft

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directly into the radiation belts and

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this time they plan to stay a while

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nasa's radiation belt storm probes have

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blasted off from cape canaveral

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bristling with sensors the heavily

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shielded spacecraft are on a two-year

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mission to discover what makes the

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radiation belt so dangerous and so

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devilishly unpredictable

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we've known about the van allen belts

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for decades yet they continue to

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surprise us with unexpected storms of

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killer electrons and other phenomena

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says mission scientist david cybeck the

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storm probes will help us understand

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what's going on out there

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when the radiation belts were discovered

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in 1958 they upended orthodox ideas

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most people assumed the space around

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earth was empty

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america's first satellite explorer 1

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proved otherwise

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the tiny spacecraft was equipped with a

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geiger tube for counting energetic

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protons and electrons

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circling earth explorer 1 found so many

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charged particles that the counter

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registered off scale most of the time

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back in the 1950s the radiation belts

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had little effect on ordinary people

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today they are utterly crucial to our

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high-tech society

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hundreds of satellites used for

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everything from weather prediction to

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gps to television routinely skim the

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belts subjecting themselves to energetic

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particles that can damage solar panels

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and short-circuit sensitive electronics

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during geomagnetic storms when the belts

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are swollen by solar activity whole

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fleets of satellites can be engulfed

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imperiling the technological

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underpinnings of daily life on the

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planet below the radiation belt storm

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probes directly address these down to

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earth problems says lika gujaratha

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courta the lead program scientist of

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nasa's living with the star program

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which manages the mission

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rbsp is a unique mix of pure science and

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practical application

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one of the biggest mysteries of the

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radiation belts is the crazy way they

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react to solar storms almost anything

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can happen says cybec when a storm cloud

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from the sun hits the radiation belts

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they often respond in counter-intuitive

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ways

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one possible outcome is that the

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radiation belts fill with energetic

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particles such as the potent killer

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electrons that worry mission planners

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however just as often the opposite

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happens

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a solar storm can cause the belts to

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lose their killer particles temporarily

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making them a safer place

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and sometimes nothing happens the belts

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remain completely unchanged

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the problem is there is no unified idea

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of what phenomena are most important

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inside the belt says cybec

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he describes attending scientific

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conferences on the subject if there are

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100 people at a meeting there will be

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100 different answers for every question

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how are killer electrons energized

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some say plasma waves do it others point

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to solar wind shocks

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others favor diffusion

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the list goes on and on

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researchers hope rbsp will narrow the

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possibilities

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during storms the probes can sample

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electric and magnetic fields

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count the number of energetic particles

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and detect plasma waves of many

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frequencies

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the inner workings of the van allen

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belts will be an open book to the two

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spacecraft providing data for predictive

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models that tell forecasters when it's

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safe to enter the belts perform

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spacewalks and operate sensitive

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electronics the van allen belts are part

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of our home in space as gujaratha corta

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rbsp will help us learn how to live

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there

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so much for the old rules indeed

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for more news about dangerous places in