A Bermuda Triangle in Space sounds so ridiculous it’s like a bad sci fi movie.
Of course there isn’t one.
In Bermuda.
It’s over South America.
Hey there everyone, Julian here for DNews.
You’ve likely heard of Bermuda Triangle in Space by this point but in case you haven’t,
it’s an area spanning from Bermuda to Florida and Puerto Rico.
It’s an area where supposedly ships and airplanes disappear for no obvious reason,
and the culprits are said to be aliens or a “vile vortex” or “Devil’s Graveyard”
or something equally ridiculous.
The truth is the reports of lost ships and planes in this region are often greatly exaggerated
and can usually be attributed to mundane reasons.
Sometimes storms sink ships, guys, nothing super spooky going on here.
But there is a place in space where space station computers crash, optical telescopes
can’t function, and satellites shut down.
Because of the eery similarities, the region has been dubbed by some the “Bermuda Triangle
of Space,” but there are a few key differences.
As stated, its edge starts about three thousand kilometers south of Bermuda, so a more accurate
but less snappy name is the “South Atlantic Anomaly.”
Then there’s the fact that all the incidents are well documented and have a scientific
explanation.
The South Atlantic Anomaly was first discovered in 1958, and is tied to the existence of the
Van Allen Radiation Belts that were discovered the same year.
These belts are ring shaped areas of charged particles from the solar wind or cosmic rays
that the magnetosphere has trapped.
The outer ring is mostly high energy electrons, while the inner belt is electrons and high
energy protons.
These protons would strip electrons from atoms so they’re harmful to humans in high enough
doses.
They also can mess with electronics that aren’t properly shielded.
Luckily the closest the inner belt usually gets to earth is about 1,000 kilometers, so
if you stay inside that, you’re good.
But over Brazil, the inner lip of that belt gets much closer to earth, as low as 200 kilometers.
A ground-dweller would never know the difference, but space stations and satellites fly right
through it and are exposed to all those charged particles.
At low inclination orbits they’d go through it up to seven times a day.
When it was first discovered, the radiation levels weren’t enough to endanger humans
or equipment.
Since then technology has gotten smaller and more sensitive, and the Anomaly has become
an unsafe place for electronics.
Even though the ISS has extra shielding because it has to pass through the Van Allen Belt,
laptops on board are still prone to crashing.
The Hubble Space Telescope will not take observations when passing through it to avoid damaging
its delicate sensors.
And in 2010 the radiation disabled most of an Air Force satellite, rendering it an $833
million piece of space junk until it could be fixed with a software patch...
Almost two years later.
Apparently who ever patched that was then hired to fix Assassin’s Creed Unity for
the PC, BOOM!
Yes I’m still mad about that, Ubisoft.
Anyway, the reason the Van Allen Belt’s edge is so close to Earth there is because
they have Earth’s magnetic poles as their axis, but Earth rotates around another axis,
which is why your compass’ north is not technically pointing to true north.
That difference in axes means the Earth is leaning towards the belt and South America
has a bunch of radiation hanging out right above it.
But it moves 34 kilometers east every year, so in a century it’ll be a problem whenever
satellites pass over Namibia.
And then both titles of “Space Bermuda Triangle” and “South American Anomaly” won’t make
sense.
So these Van Allen Belts are spinning around and are caused by magnetic fields which are
caused by our spinning iron core, but why is everything in space spinning all the time?
Trace talks about that here.
Space is a crazy place and there’s always more to discover there.
If you have any probing questions, leave them in the comments or on our DNews reddit page,
r/DNews, and we’ll answer them if we can.
Subscribe for more and I’ll see you next time on DNews.