Science Past

From Science News Letter, May 10, 1958

The first reports on findings from the first two U.S. satellites have been announced.… They included: A mysterious radiation … at heights greater than 600 miles above the earth’s surface.… Dr. [James] Van Allen and his colleagues at the State University of Iowa calculate that if the satellite’s cosmic ray geiger tube had not been jammed by an intense radiation field, it would have registered at least 35,000 counts per second.