PARIS, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency says it's found highly energetic electrons that damage satellites and pose a serious hazard to astronauts.
Since 2001, the Paris-based ESA's multi-spacecraft Cluster mission has significantly enhanced scientists' knowledge of how the "killer electrons" are created.
The Cluster project involves four satellites that return simultaneous observations while following elliptical polar orbits, exploring the magnetosphere -- that region of space dominated by Earth's magnetic field.
Satellite measurements in the 1950s revealed the existence of two permanent rings of energetic particles.
Called the Van Allen radiation belts, they are filled with particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field.
The inner belt contains a fairly stable protons, while the outer belt is mainly composed of electrons in a more variable quantity.
Some of the outer belt electrons can be accelerated to very high energies, and it is those 'killer electrons' that can penetrate thick satellite shielding and create intense radiation that's a threat to astronauts.
Because of our increased reliance on space-based technologies, the killer electrons is of great importance, said Ondrej Santolík of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, the main author of the ESA study.
