I looked at the paper they’re talking about (which has not yet been peer reviewed), and I couldn’t find any past peer reviewed research from the author. The paper also doesn’t really explain any of its arguments past referencing sometimes unrelated stuff that “sounds scientific,” so I suspect it will be rejected from any reasonable journal. Some of their graphs seem to have problems and their comparisons to the mass of the Van Allen belts seem questionable. Also radiation belts don’t really “protect earth”.

Writing a news article based on a Arxiv article from an author that isn’t established seems extremely dubious.