Scientists discovered a gigantic particle accelerator in one of the most treacherous areas of space.
The accelerator is a "region of super-energetic, charged particles surrounding the globe called the Van Allen radiation belts," NASA reported.
NASA had already detected something in space accelerating particles to more than 99 percent the speed of light, the Van Allen Probes discovered the belts were responsible.
"Particles inside the belts are sped up by local kicks of energy, buffeting the particles to ever faster speeds, much like a perfectly timed push on a moving swing," NASA said.
The discovery will help scientists predict space-weather conditions, which will help curb satellite accidents.
"This is one of the most highly anticipated and exciting results from the Van Allen Probes," David Sibeck, Van Allen Probes project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said. "It goes to the heart of why we launched the mission."
The belts are a hazard to spacecrafts, and can expose them to dangerous radiation. The belts can swell according to space-weather, and suck in a manmade craft.
"Until the 1990s, we thought that the Van Allen belts were pretty well-behaved and changed slowly," Geoff Reeves, the first author on the paper and a radiation belt scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said. "With more and more measurements, however, we realized how quickly and unpredictably the radiation belts changed. They are basically never in equilibrium, but in a constant state of change."
The belts are extremely unpredictable; some solar storms intensify them, while others seem to have little or no effect. Scientists hope to discover where the particle-accelerating energy comes from in order to better predict the belt's behavior.
"When scientists designed the mission and the instrumentation on the probes, they looked at the scientific unknowns and said, 'This is a great chance to unlock some fundamental knowledge about how particles are accelerated,'" Nicola J. Fox, deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said.
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