Van Allen Belt

For decades after Birkenland's death, his theory remained in limbo. Even when the ionosphere was discovered and it should have been obvious that this was the conduit for Birkenland's currents to sweep over the sky, few scientists accepted his argument. Only in the 1960s was he finally vindicated. For this was now the space age, the time when satellites could penetrate the world that Birkenland had simulated and monitored, but could never touch. Satellites had discovered that space was radio-active. And they were also about to discover just how right Birkenland had always been.

James Van Allen was presenting his findings to the world. The patch of space hugging the top of our atmosphere was mysteriously radioactive. That's what Explorers I and III gad clearly shown. He still wasn't exactly sure what this meant, or why it would prove to be important, but that hadn't prevented him from laying out the results to assembled scientists at the National Academy of Sciences. More difficult was explaining them to the journalists at the press conference that followed. Van Allen struggled to find the words. The radiation they had discovered seemed to congregate in a giant cloud, spread like a doughnut with Earth occupying the hole in the middle. It was corpuscular radiation -- that is, charged particles -- grinding the planet in a giant, well..something like... "Do you mean like a belt?" one reporter demanded. "Yes, like a belt," Van Allen replied. And thus the "Val Allen Belt" was born. ~ Page 226