VAN ALLEN BELT ABLAZE

Wide spread panic has hit the southern atmosphere due to the flooding occurring along the coastlines from the band of fire that has appeared in the sky. It appeared first over the Pacific about 4 a.m. as a glowing yellow and red patch. Inside of fifteen minutes it acquired flame like streamers and began to stretch out east and west, like a forest fire in a hurricane wind. And north and south, slower. Within seven hours the two growing ends of the fire joined together on the other side of the world. The band lies roughly over the equator, tending a little south over western Africa and a little north over south east Asia. It has grown wider and is averaging four degrees in width.

It is sitting at an average of 300 miles above the earth with the margins shifting all the time. Some of the flames lick down to 220 miles or closer and the same variation outwards. It is about 150 miles thick. So all in all the band of fires is nearly 28,000 miles long, a thousand miles wide and 150 miles thick.

This cutaway model of the Van Allen Belts shows the small inner belt and the larger outer belt, and the crescent shape of each belt's cross section.

The Van Allen Belt is an area of radiation, varying in intensity, formed of free electrons from the sun trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. The belt impinges on the earth at about 50 degrees north and south of the magnetic equator. The outer belt's radiation is most intense at its thickest and tapers off to nothing about 1000 miles up , over the 50th meridians north and south.

The center of intensity of the inner belt, ( the one that is burning) is about 2,000 miles from the surface. It too tapers away to nothing, down at about the 450 to 500 mile level which happens to be the accepted average of the topmost layers of our atmosphere.

Southern Anomaly

"It is thought that a meteor shower, a cloud of dust, most likely, a dense cloud of interstellar dust, fine enough to be able to be pushed aroud by the magnetic field and the Van Allen belt, suffused the outer belt. By the crescent shape of the cross secton it has become something like a parabolic lens. If this has become lenslike enough to focus the sun's rays at a point three hundred or so miles off the surface, it is possible to get a large concentration of energy.

That happens to be the so called ozone layer as well, so there is enough free oxygen atoms that will easily combine with anything. If this is heated up and enough air rises into the ozone layer, to give it plenty to combine with, it burns. The more it burns, the more it heats, the hotter it gets , the more fuel comes up to feed it.

An emergency meeting at the United Nations is being convened. The best scientific brains from all over the world will be attending. Admiral Nelson will be one of the scientists in attendance.