Van Allen radiation belt
The radiation detectors and magnetometer were searching for lunar magnetic and radiation fields similar to the Van Allen radiation belt around Earth, sending information about once every minute until its last transmission which came about 55 km away from the lunar surface. Although it did prove previous measurements of the Van Allen radiation belts that were taken from "Luna 1" around the Earth, it was not able to detect any type of radiation belts around the Moon at or beyond the limits of its magnetometer's sensitivity (2–3x10−4 G).