SATELLITE MEASUREMENTS IN THE "STARFISH" ARTIFICIAL RADIATION ZONE

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Abstract
Particle detectors in the Alouette satellite have been used to study radiation artificially injected into the earth's magnetic field by the "Starfish" high-altitude nuclear explosion. The spatial distribution of electrons with energies greater than 3.9 Mev is given for a time about three months after the explosion for regions in BL space sampled by the satellite. The measurements show that the electron spectrum is a strong function of the magnetic shell parameter L; in the range L = 1.25 to 1.70 there is a marked softening of the spectrum with increasing L. The decay of the artificial radiation zone has been studied for a period of from three to six months following the explosion, and decay constants at different points in BL space have been estimated.

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