Dr. Sasha Ukhorskiy
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
The Van Allen Probes: Resolving Fundamental Physicswith Practical Consequences
The fundamental processes that energize, transport, and cause the loss of charged particles operate throughout the universe at locations as diverse as magnetized planets, the solar wind, our Sun, and other stars. The same processes operate within our immediate environment, the Earth’s radiation belts. The Van Allen Storm Probes (RBSP) mission provides coordinated two-spacecraft observations to obtain understanding of these fundamental processes controlling the dynamic variability of the near- Earth radiation environment. In this talk we discuss some of the profound mysteries of the radiation belt physics and the first results obtained by the RBSP mission.