Remember the big solar storm on May 10 and 11, 2024, which sparked a major disruption in Earth’s magnetic field and thereby created widespread auroras? It featured an X2.9 flare on the sun, during a time of high sun activity overall (much like this week). On X (formerly Twitter) on July 31, 2024, @NASASun reported that the big May solar storm also created a new, temporary Van Allen radiation belt. It’s a new ring of charged, high-energy particles encircling Earth.
Will this new Van Allen belt impede the 4 space travelers due to travel to the moon, possibly as early as September 2025, in NASA’s Artemis 2 mission? Read about human travel through the Van Allen belts below.
NASA’s Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment (CIRBE) CubeSat discovered the new belt, which could last from months to years. The new belt is sandwiched between the already-existing inner and outer Van Allen radiation belts.
https://earthsky.org/earth/2024-mays-solar-storm-new-ring-around-earth-van-allen-belt/
