In May 2024, particles from an extremely powerful solar flare reached Earth. They caused a geomagnetic storm of extreme strength. As scientists discovered with the help of the CIRBE satellite, it entailed the formation of temporary radiation belts near our planet.
Radiation belts and magnetic storms
There are two zones around the Earth in which high-energy charged particles are constantly present. These are the so-called Van Allen belts. However, additional belts may form after particularly strong geomagnetic storms caused by solar flares above or below them. One such interesting event, which occurred last year, is described in a scientific paper published on February 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.
In May 2024, Earth was hit by one of the strongest magnetic storms in the last two decades. It forced the sky to glow with auroras and caused GPS malfunctions. However, thanks to NASA’s Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment (CIRBE), we now know that it created two temporary radiation belts.
What makes the new belts unusual
As mentioned earlier, temporary radiation belts after powerful geomagnetic storms have been seen before. However, they were somewhat unusual this time around for several reasons at once. Such time zones are usually filled only with electrons. And one of the two new belts was quite ordinary in this respect. The second one consisted mainly of protons.
This is very unusual, but scientists say this anomaly can be easily explained by the intensity and composition of the solar storm itself. These phenomena can have quite different characteristics. However, what was even more amazing about these magnetic poles was the duration of their existence.
Normally, temporary radiation belts last about four weeks. This time, however, even the one consisting of electrons lasted more than three months. As for the other, populated mostly by protons, it turned out to be even more stable and may well have survived until now.
CIRBE satellite
CIRBE satellites deserve a separate narrative. It has been circling the Earth since 2023 with the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope Integrated Little Experiment-2 device on board and has occasionally dipped into the Van Allen appearances. In fact, it was the most advanced vehicle built to study them.
However, on April 24, 2024, technical problems occurred with CIRBE and it stopped communicating, so when it happened, its consequences could be observed by scientists only thanks to other vehicles, which were much worse suited for this purpose.
And on June 15, communication with CIRBE was restored and it began to transmit data, from which scientists learned all the unusualness of the new belts. However, the delight did not last long. It turned out that during the silence the orbit of the spacecraft decreased, and it would not be possible to raise it. So, in October, it went out of orbit.
According to phys.org
