I have been watching the livestream of the International Space Station on YouTube these past few days, and I've noticed consistently when it's nighttime that the camera gets all funky specifically over Argentina. Like, multicolored artifacts and funky glowing lights in an otherwise black screen. I assumed it was some kind of space radiation, but it's just so oddly centered in that one spot.
Did some internet researching, and today I learned about the South Atlantic Anomaly, or South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly. It's a region right over Argentina, extending out into the southern Atlantic ocean, where the Earth's magnetic field is weak, which allows the particles of the radiation belt around our planet to come closer than in other places. This area can apparently fry satellites, so the ISS has extra shielding to protect it when it passes through. Sure does fun things with those external cameras though!


















