Abstract

The start of the space era marked the discovery of the Earth's radiation belts. Sixty-five years after that discovery, there are still many unknowns in its dynamics, but there is also a lot of understanding about many processes. This review summarizes a broad overview of a particular topic: the effect of geomagnetic storms on the radiation belts from a historical perspective. In writing this review, we aim to preserve, rescue, and put together the initial attempts at understanding the radiation belts since most of the literature is somewhat hidden or forgotten. This is particularly relevant for students and young researchers, who did not live the initial stages of the space age. To help in this endeavor, we included the description of the main satellite missions and their instruments starting from the first satellites like Sputnik and Explorer and finishing with contemporary missions like Van Allen Probes and Arase, and different techniques. In this review, we also tried to include the majority of points of view about the dynamics of radiation belts, giving everybody a chance to analyze them and make their conclusions. We selected a limited number of papers from one side that are representative with respect to a specific topic and from the other side help to see the evolution of our knowledge about radiation belts. We made a special tribute to pioneering works of the 50s and 60s and also included some interesting results, which are almost impossible to read in English. So this review is a good starting point for navigating the ocean of modern space physics related to the outer radiation belt.