Daily Debriefing
A team of Dartmouth researchers has been selected to share in $2.3 million of NASA funds. The researchers will conduct studies that will facilitate auxiliary missions on a larger mission that will launch in 2012. Dartmouth's portion of the research will focus on "mechanisms that will cause the Earth's radiation belts to periodically drain away into the planet's atmosphere," according to a statement. The College is sharing the funds with researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Central Florida, Orlando, who have been assigned to conduct different studies in the same project. NASA has also provided $100 million in funds to be split between four teams of researchers conducting studies and supporting hardware for the main portion of the mission.