Earth's Radiation Belts and Plasmapause
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Science History Images / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
HRJJ8MFile size:
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3840 x 2160 px | 32.5 x 18.3 cm | 12.8 x 7.2 inches | 300dpiPhotographer:
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This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.
The near-Earth space enviroment is a complex interaction between Earth's magnetic field, cool plasma moving up from Earth's ionosphere, and hotter plasma coming in from the solar wind. These interactions combine to maintain the radiation belts around Earth. Plasma interactions can generate sharply delineated regions in these belts. In addition to the inner and outer radiation belts, the cooler plasma of the plasmasphere interacts so that it keeps out the higher-energy electrons from outside its boundary, the plasmapause. In this visualization, the radiation belts (rainbow-colored) and plasmapause (blue-green surface) surround Earth, its structure largely determined by Earth's dipole magnetic field (curved cyan lines). The radiation belt is sliced open to reveal representative confined charged particles spiraling around the magnetic field structure. Yellow particles represent negative-charged electrons, blue particles represent positive-charged ions. However, if realistically scaled for particle mass and energies, the spiral motion would not be visible at this distance so particle masses and size scales are adjusted to make them visible.