Review of observations about the Van Allen Belts

Giant donut-shaped swaths of magnetically trapped, highly energetic charged particles surround Earth. James Van Allen, a physicist at the University of Iowa, discovered these radiation belts in 1958 after the launch of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite. The radiation belts were eventually named after him.. This article gives an overview of the results and observations made till now. As technology advances, it`s actually becoming even more pressing to understand and predict our space environment, especially the Van Allen Belts. While observations have continued for decades, our knowledge of the belts became more enhanced when the Van Allen Probes launched in 2012. They found that the belts were more complex than previously imagined. The probes showed that the shape of the belts depends on what particle is being studied. They also uncovered information hinting there is less radiation than imagined in certain parts of the Van Allen belts, which means spacecraft and humans would not need as much radiation protection if they are voyaging in that region. State-of-the-art technologies and their implementation in satellites will be given to estabish ground work for the upcoming papers, proposing measures to study Van Allen Belts in more detail.