Researchers at Northumbria University in the UK have been awarded £4m (US$5.4m) to investigate the behavior of Earth’s radiation belts, with the aim of improving space weather forecasting and satellite protection.

The five-year project, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), will examine why radiation belts can change rapidly and remain difficult to predict.

Radiation belts are regions around Earth where charged particles are trapped by the planet’s magnetic field. Their intensity and size can vary dramatically over just hours or days due to solar activity, but scientists currently cannot predict their behavior.

The project will be led by Clare Watt, professor of space physics at Northumbria University, and will combine spacecraft data from international missions with advanced computer modeling to better understand how energy moves through Earth’s magnetosphere.

“Despite decades of research and sophisticated NASA missions that have sampled these harsh environments directly, the radiation belts have remained frustratingly unpredictable,” said Watt.

“This project will help us understand whether that’s because we don’t fully grasp the physics involved, or because parts of the system are inherently chaotic and sensitive to tiny changes in conditions.”

The research will focus on two main questions: what controls how much energy from the solar wind reaches the radiation belts, and whether small changes in conditions can lead to dramatically different outcomes.

Improving understanding of these processes is important for protecting satellites operating in near-Earth space. These systems support services including GPS navigation, telecommunications and weather forecasting.

“Earth’s radiation belts are the only place in the universe where we can directly sample such high-energy astrophysical environments,” Watt said. “The insights from this project will be crucial for transforming scientific models into operational forecasting tools.”

The project team includes researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Warwick.

“It is an eternal wonder that microscale interactions of subatomic particles that occur in one thousandth of a second can determine the global evolution of the near-Earth radiation environment,” said Oliver Allanson, researcher at the University of Birmingham.

The project is expected to produce recommendations for improving forecasting accuracy, including the use of real-time data and probabilistic modeling approaches.

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