A protective bubble around Earth? NASA says yes

Mankind has unwittingly created a protective bubble shielding Earth from potentially damaging solar particles and energy, NASA has announced.

The bubble is the result of very low frequency radio waves interacting with radiation particles in the near-space environment, scientists say. Those radio waves are designed to communicate with submarines deep underwater, but they also extend far beyond the atmosphere.

In the right conditions, that bubble provides a protective barrier against dangerous space radiation, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Further studies of the radio waves are planned, NASA says.

This story was originally published May 24, 2017 at 7:04 AM with the headline "A protective bubble around Earth? NASA says yes."