by In May 2024, an epic solar storm rattled so powerfully that its effects were even felt on the bottom of the ocean.
In the aftermath of a stream of flare activity on the sun, our planet was buffered by a powerful explosion of sun plates that shake our magnetic field and bathe our air with a panophy of glittering colors while Auroras reached much lower wide grabbades than normal.
But its effects were much more overrun, as scientists now reveal. In the months after the storm, the earth was omed by two new, temporary radiation tires of energy -rich particles, caught by the magnetic field of the planet.
Although we have seen this phenomenon earlier – following powerful geomagnetic storms – the solar storm of May 2024 delivered something that we had never detected before: energetic protons in one of the new belts.
“When we compared the data from before and after the storm, I said,” Wow, this is something very new, “says physicist Xinlin Li of the University of Colorado Boulder. “This is really amazing.”
Radiation tires are a normal part of the architecture of a planet with a worldwide magnetic field. Stars leak constant particles, worn by a stellar wind; These flows out and, where they come across planetary magnetic fields, are enclosed and form huge belts in torus formation around the planet in the middle.
The Earth has two permanent radiation tires known as the Van Allen Belts, an inner belt closer to the planet and an outdoor belt that surrounds both. This is a good thing; It is a kind of a planetary defense system that protects our planet against direct bombing through sun parts and enables us to live relatively unscathed here.
Since these belts are maintained and supplemented by sun plates, it is not surprising that an increase in the output of the sun lines, as generated by the torches and coronal mass -plans of a solar storm, would increase what is already there.
Nevertheless, when the scientists investigated the effects of the solar storm of May 2024 based on data collected by the inner radiation belt experiment of NASA of NASA, she surprised them.
There, sandwiched between the two of all -radiation tires, they found two new belts – a mainly existing electrons, as we have seen earlier, and the other who contains energetic protons that have never been seen before.
“These are really energetic electrons and protons that have found their way to the inner magnetic environment of the earth,” says astronomer David Sibeck of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who was not involved in the investigation. “Some may stay in this place for a long time.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKunt2QSHK4 frame order = “0 ″ all =” accelerometer; Autoplay; clipboard writing; coded media; gyroscope; Picture-in-Picture; Web-Share “ReferencerPolicy =” Strict-Origin-When-Cross-Origin “Allowfullscreen>
In fact, the belts remained intact for much longer than previous temporary radiation tires generated by solar storms: three months compared to the weeks we would normally expect.
The subsequent solar storms in June and August 2024 made the most particles out of a job, so that the density of the belts was considerably reduced. However, there is still a small amount left, hanging around with the earth.
Moreover, the Proton Belt can remain intact for more than a year. Current measurements will help scientists measure his lifespan and decay percentage.
This is important information to have: particles in the earth can pose a danger for satellites that hang there, so knowing the particle density and the effects that solar storms can have on them, engineers can help design limiting strategies to protect our technology.
At the moment, however, the danger of the new radiation tires is not quantified. Future studies will be needed to determine the risks that these and future belts can form.
The research has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.
