Apollo Hoax Theories: Glow-in-the-Dark Astronauts

The Science: The Van Allen Belts are created by Earth's magnetic field, and protect the planet from dangerous solar radiation. The belts collects this radiation, and traps it in a layer surrounding the Earth. But unless you deliberately caused your spaceship to hover within this layer, for many hours or days, the radiation exposure is well below dangerous levels. The Apollo astronauts passed through the Belts in less than four hours total for the trip. "It's not much more serious than getting a chest x-ray," said Plait. Outside the belt, the radiation drops to low levels that are only dangerous over extremely long periods of time.