What are the Van Allen belts? Learn how these giant rings of charged particles cause problems for astronauts and satellites.

The Van Allen radiation belts are giant swaths of magnetically trapped, highly energetic charged particles that surround Earth.

The discovery of a temporary new radiation belt now has scientists reviewing the Van Allen radiation belt models to understand how it occurred. Radiation rings around Earth ...

NASA's new Van Allen Probes have revealed how quickly the radiation belts around Earth change, and how charged particles there vary in time, energy and spatial distribution.

The inner Van Allen belt has less radiation than previously believed, according to a recent study in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Observations from NASA's Van Allen probes show the fastest ...

The Van Allen Belts are a pair of rings, circling the earth, made up of charged particles. Named for astronomer James Van Allen, these cosmic doughnuts were discovered early in the space age ...

When NASA scientists launched twin spacecraft to probe the Van Allen radiation belts last summer, they were expecting to study two rings of high-energy particles circling Earth. Instead they found ...

This third Van Allen belt lasted only a few weeks before it vanished, and its cause remained inexplicable. Mann is co-investigator on the NASA Van Allen Probes mission.

Scientists detected an invisible shield roughly 7,200 miles above the Earth’s surface that is protecting us from harmful, super-fast electrons flying close to the speed of light.

The Van Allen Probes discovered that, instead of two layers, the belt has an occasional third layer of charged particles and that they sometimes form zones called ‘zebra stripes’.