 In
1958, America’s first satellite,
Explorer 1, carried James van Allen’s
Geiger counter experiment into
orbit to study cosmic rays. This
radiation detector worked
perfectly at first, but then mysteriously
fell silent as it rose higher in
its orbit. At first it was thought
that the instrument had malfunctioned.
A
second satellite, Explorer 3,
experienced the same drop
in its detection of radiation
as altitude
increased. Van Allen and
his research team began to suspect
that the
radiation counts
were
not dropping, but increasing
beyond what the detector could
measure
and were overwhelming the
instrument’s
electronics.
 Van
Allen’s experiment had
discovered the belts of charged
particles that now bear his
name. It was later shown that
the instrument’s “malfunction” was
due to radiation 1,000 times
stronger than the Geiger counter
could record.
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