Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                            May 24, 
1994
(Phone:  202/358-1547)


RELEASE:  94-81

NASA AND AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION HONOR JAMES A. VAN ALLEN

   NASA and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) honored 
pioneering space scientist Dr. James A. Van Allen, Professor 
Emeritus at the University of Iowa in a ceremony on his 80th 
birthday.  The ceremony was held at the AGU's 75th anniversary 
meeting in Baltimore, Md., today.

   NASA presented Dr. Van Allen with an original computer painting 
commemorating his distinguished half-century career studying 
planetary magnetospheres and cosmic rays.  Dr. Van Allen is most 
well-known for his discovery of the belt of radiation around the 
Earth that bears his name.  His radiation-measuring equipment 
aboard the first successful American satellites, Explorers 1 and 
3, launched in 1958, provided data for the first space-age 
scientific discovery -- the existence of a doughnut-shaped region 
of charged particle radiation trapped by the Earth's magnetic 
field.

   Dr. Van Allen and his team also provided instruments for other 
NASA missions including energetic charged particle detectors 
aboard the Venus-bound Mariner 2 and Mars-bound Mariner 4, an 
energetic charged particle detector on the Explorer 35 (the first 
American spacecraft to orbit the Moon), and energetic charged 
particle detectors aboard the Jupiter-bound Pioneers 10 and 11.  
Dr. Van Allen's instruments aboard Pioneer 10 contributed to the 
discovery of the magnetosphere and radiation belts of Jupiter and 
the radiation belts of Saturn.  In addition to studying Jupiter 
and Saturn, Dr. Van Allen and his team used Pioneer 10 and 11 data 
to study the galactic cosmic rays in the solar system.

   The AGU's Space Physics and Aeronomy Section also sponsored a 
special Van Allen Symposium featuring invited speakers on past 
accomplishments, recent important results and future prospects in 
a number of areas in which Dr. Van Allen has made significant 
contributions.  

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