Under the wave of energetic particles from the Halloween 2003 solar storm events, the Earth’s radiation belts underwent significant changes in structure. This visualization is constructed using daily-averaged particle flux data from the SAMPEX satellite installed in a simple dipole model for the Earth’s magnetic field. The toroidal structure of the belts corresponds to regions with electron fluxes in excess of 100 electrons/s/cm^2/steradian with energies of 2-6 MeV. The color-scale on the cross section is violet for low flux and white for high flux. The translucent gray arcs represent the fields lines of the Earth’s dipole field. The 3-dimensional structure was built from the SAMPEX measurement by propagating the particle flux values along field lines of a simple magnetic dipole.
This visualization shows the Earth’s magnetic dipole field lines rotating rigidly with the Earth. Technically, this is inaccurate. Ions and electrons in the lower atmosphere can create currents which can make these lines ‘drag’ with Earth’s rotation, but this will occur mostly near the Earth and not higher up.
The full image shows the radiation belts on four different days in 2003; Oct 17, Oct 30, Nov 5, Dec 11. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization StudioLink to associated news item