Concentric rings of highly charged radiation encircle our
planet, and we know surprisingly little about them. But once
NASA completes a $686 million mission to launch a twin pair of
space probes into the eye of this solar storm, the Van Allen
belts should be much less of a mystery. The Van Allen belts were
discovered in 1958 by University of Iowa professor James A. Van
Allen. The belts are two layers of the same doughnut of charged
plasma—the inner belt stretches from the edge of the atmosphere
to a radius of 4,000 miles, and the outer belt stretches from
8,000 miles to roughly 24,000. Thy're held in place by our
planet's magnetic field. Nearly all of humanity's communications
satellites orbit at the outer edge of the 4,000-mile gap that
separates the two belts. These belts shrink and swell in
accordance to the larger solar weather patterns in our galactic
neighborhood. Increased solar activity can bend these bands
closer to the Earth and into the orbital range of our
communication satellites. Much like solar