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  main article image
  [30](NASA)
  [31]SPACE

There's a Human-Made Barrier in Space, Surrounding The Entire Earth

  SCIENCEALERT STAFF
  15 DECEMBER 2020

  In 2017, NASA space probes detected a massive, human-made 'barrier'
  surrounding Earth.

  And tests have confirmed that it's actually having an effect on space
  weather far beyond our planet's atmosphere.

  That means we're not just changing Earth so severely, scientists are
  calling for a [32]whole new geological epoch to be named after us - our
  activities have been changing space too.

  But the good news is that unlike our influence on the planet itself,
  that humungous bubble we created out in space is actually working in
  our favour.

  [33]Back in 2012, NASA launched two space probes to work in tandem with
  each other as they whizzed through Earth's Van Allen Belts at speeds of
  around 3,200 km/h (2,000 mph).

  Our planet is surrounded by two such radiation belts ([34]and a
  temporary third one) - the inner belt stretches from around 640 to
  9,600 km (400 to 6,000 miles) above Earth's surface, while the outer
  belt occupies an altitude of roughly 13,500 to 58,000 km (8,400 to
  36,000 miles).

  In 2017, the Van Allen Probes detected something strange as they
  monitored the activity of charged particles caught within Earth's
  magnetic field - these dangerous solar discharges were being kept at
  bay by some kind of low frequency barrier.

  When researchers investigated, they found that this barrier had been
  actively pushing the Van Allen Belts away from Earth over the past few
  decades, and now the lower limits of the radiation streams are actually
  further away from us than they were in the 1960s.

  So what's changed?

  A certain type of transmission, called [35]very low frequency (VLF)
  radio communications, have become [36]far more common now than in the
  60s, and the team at NASA confirmed that they can influence how and
  where certain particles in space move about.

  In other words, thanks to VLF, we now have anthropogenic (or
  human-made) space weather.

  "A number of experiments and observations have figured out that, under
  the right conditions, radio communications signals in the VLF frequency
  range can in fact affect the properties of the high-energy radiation
  environment around the Earth," [37]said one of the team, Phil Erickson
  from the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, back in 2017.

  Most of us won't have much to do with VLF signals in our everyday life,
  but they're a mainstay in many engineering, scientific, and military
  operations.

  With frequencies between 3 and 30 kilohertz, they're far too weak to
  carry audio transmissions, but they're perfect for broadcasting coded
  messages across long-distances or deep underwater.

  One of the most common uses of VLF signals is to communicate with
  deep-sea submarines, but because their large wavelengths can diffract
  around large obstacles such as mountain ranges, they're also used to
  achieve transmissions across tricky terrain.

  It was never the intention for VLF signals to go anywhere other than on
  Earth, but it turns out they've been leaking into the space surrounding
  our planet, and have lingered long enough to form a giant protective
  bubble.

  IFRAME: [38]https://www.youtube.com/embed/cFYoYUBGw4s

  When the Van Allen Probes compared the location of the VLF bubble to
  the bounds of Earth's radiation belts, they found what initially looked
  like an interesting coincidence - "The outward extent of the VLF bubble
  corresponds almost exactly to the inner edge of the Van Allen radiation
  belts," [39]said NASA.

  But once they realised that VLF signals can actually influence the
  movement of the charged particles within these radiation belts, they
  realised that our unintentional human-made barrier has been
  progressively pushing them back.

  One of the team, Dan Baker, from the University of Colorado's
  Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, referred to this as the
  [40]"impenetrable barrier".

  While our protective VLF bubble is probably the best influence we
  humans have made on the space surrounding our planet, it's certainly
  not the only one - we've been making our mark on space [41]since the
  19th century, and particularly over the past 50 years, when nuclear
  explosions [42]were all the rage.

  "These explosions created artificial radiation belts near Earth that
  resulted in major damages to several satellites," the NASA team
  explained.

  "Other anthropogenic impacts on the space environment include chemical
  release experiments, high-frequency wave heating of the ionosphere and
  the interaction of VLF waves with the radiation belts."

  Astronomer Carl Sagan once wanted to find [43]unequivocal indications
  of life on Earth from up in space - turns out, there are a bunch of
  them if you know where to look.

  The research was published by [44]Science Space Reviews.

  A version of this story was first published in May 2017.

  [p?c1=2&c2=10055482&cv=2.0&cj=1]

References

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 30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=cFYoYUBGw4s
 31. https://www.sciencealert.com/space
 32. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-declared-the-dawn-of-a-new-human-influenced-epoch
 33. https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-inner-radiation-belt-is-far-weaker-than-we-thought-and-it-s-got-nasa-very-excited
 34. https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-inner-radiation-belt-is-far-weaker-than-we-thought-and-it-s-got-nasa-very-excited
 35. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_frequency
 36. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-van-allen-probes-spot-man-made-barrier-shrouding-earth
 37. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-van-allen-probes-spot-man-made-barrier-shrouding-earth
 38. https://www.youtube.com/embed/cFYoYUBGw4s
 39. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-van-allen-probes-spot-man-made-barrier-shrouding-earth
 40. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-van-allen-probes-spot-man-made-barrier-shrouding-earth
 41. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-017-0357-5
 42. https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-the-true-scale-of-nuclear-weapons-will-give-you-anxiety
 43. https://www.sciencealert.com.au/spacecraft-shows-earth-is-habitable-but-more-polluted?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1
 44. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-017-0357-5

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