The Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth, which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field. This field is not uniformly distributed around the Earth. On the sunward side, it is compressed because of the solar wind, while on the other side it is elongated to around three earth radii. This creates a cavity called the Chapman Ferraro Cavity, in which the Van Allen radiation belt resides. It is split into two distinct belts, with energetic electrons forming the outer belt and a combination of protons and electrons creating the inner belt. In addition, the belts contain lesser amounts of other nuclei, such as alpha particles. The Van Allen belts are closely related to the polar aurora where particles strike the upper atmosphere and fluoresce.

Prior to the Space Age, the possibility of trapped charged particles had been investigated by Kristian Birkeland, Carl Størmer, and Nicholas Christofilos. The existence of the belt was confirmed by the Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 missions in early 1958, under Dr James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. The trapped radiation was first mapped out by Explorer 4, Pioneer 3 and Luna 1.

The term Van Allen belts refers specifically to the radiation belts surrounding Earth; however, similar radiation belts have been discovered around other planets. The Sun does not support long-term radiation belts. The Earth's atmosphere limits the belts' particles to regions above 200–1,000 km, while the belts do not extend past 7 Earth radii R_E. The belts are confined to an area which extends about 65° from the celestial equator.

An upcoming NASA mission, Radiation Belt Storm Probes, will go further and gain scientific understanding (to the point of predictability) of how populations of relativistic electrons and ions in space form or change in response to changes in solar activity and the solar wind.