Just three days after its launch, the scientists on the mission made a decision to turn on the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) early in order that its observations would overlap with another mission called SAMPEX (Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer), that was soon going to de-orbit and re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
Shortly before REPT turned on, solar activity on the Sun had sent energy toward Earth that caused the radiation belts to swell.
"This is the first time we have had such high-resolution instruments look at time, space and energy together in the outer belt," said Daniel Baker, lead author of the study and
REPT instrument lead at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder.