NASA: Space Weather And Radiation Bubble Are Linked To Human Activity

The ongoing debate about global warming and climate change includes arguments about whether our world actually faces such a problem, and whether it was caused by human activity. But there’s another earthling-influenced phenomenon we don’t hear too much about: how we affect what happens in space. According to NASA: Space weather ― which can include changes in Earth’s magnetic environment ― are usually triggered by the sun’s activity, but recently declassified data on high-altitude nuclear explosion tests have provided a new look at the mechanisms that set off perturbations in that magnetic system. Earth is surrounded by layers of radiation belts, and as the space agency says in the following video, the Cold War-era experiments of the 1950s and ‘60s produced extra radiation close to Earth. While those military tests concluded long ago, the after-effects of such actions, now called human-induced space weather, are the focus of a new study published in Space Science Reviews, which offers research access to millions of scientific documents. As reported in The Scientific Foundation of Space Weather: These explosions created artificial radiation belts near Earth that resulted in major damages to several satellites. Another unexpected impact of the high-altitude nuclear tests was the electromagnetic pulse that can have devastating effects over a large geographic area (such as the continental United States). Other anthropogenic impacts o...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news