LAUREL, Md., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- NASA says it is renaming a mission to study Earth's radiation belts after James Van Allen, the U.S. astrophysicist who discovered them in 1958.
The new name, the Van Allen Probes, replaces the previous name of Radiation Belt Storm Probes launched in August and was announced Friday during a ceremony at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., where Van Allen worked during and after World War II.