Near-Earth space shows its stripes

摘要

Using some of the first scientific satellites put into orbit during the late 1950s, teams led by physicists James Van Allen in the United States and Sergei Vernov in the Soviet Union independently reported on defined regions of radiation in near-Earth space. These regions came to be known as Earth's radiation belts, and they represent the first major scientific discovery of the space age. However, despite decades of study, many questions in radiation-belt physics remain unanswered, mostly concerning the nature of the inner and outer belts, which are populated by electrons moving at near the speed of light. As society becomes ever more dependent on satellite-based technology, it is increasingly important to understand the variability in the radiation belts, because the highest-energy "killer electrons" can result in potentially fatal damage to sensitive spacecraft electronics. On page 338 of this issue, Ukhorskiy et al. present observations and a model of a previously unexplained structured feature of the inner radiation belt, which they call zebra stripes.