NASA Discovers Two New Radiation Belts After Massive Solar Storm

The May 2024 solar storm, the strongest in two decades, created temporary radiation belts with unique particle compositions, posing new challenges for spaceflight safety.

The May 2024 solar storm generated two temporary radiation belts between Earth's permanent Van Allen Belts, a phenomenon observed through NASA's CIRBE CubeSat.
One of the belts included high-energy protons, marking a unique composition not seen in previous temporary radiation belts caused by solar storms.
The electron belt lasted over three months, while the proton belt remains stable and may still exist, raising concerns for spacecraft traveling through these regions.
CIRBE, a small satellite that had gone dormant before the storm, unexpectedly resumed operations, enabling high-resolution data collection that revealed the belts' formation and dynamics.
The findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, provide critical insights for safeguarding spacecraft and astronauts from radiation hazards during future solar storms.

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