Van Allen Radiation Belts

The inner radiation belt consists of trapped rotons with energies in the range 10-100 million electron volts. It is located on field lines crossing the equator at 1.5 RE (where 1 RE = 6370KM : RE is the earth radius)

The outer radiation belt consist of trapped populations of ions and electrons having energies of up to 1 million electron volts at high energy part. The bulk of the population has lower energies of up to 65 kilo electron vlots. The ion populations are identified as ring current plasma. Field lines crossing the equator at 2.5 minus 8RE described the outer belt.

The fundamental property of magnetic field is that they have the ability to trapped charged particles to move back and forth in a spiraling motion along the field line. The points at which the particles are refelcted back are called minor points