Researchers from Japan showed that the risk of exposure to passengers and crews of aircraft with solar particles of high energy is not high enough to take preventive measures. The work of scientists is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The main threat to radiation irradiation in flight is galactic cosmic rays and solar particles of high energy. However, if the first is relatively stable – their dose in flight at a height of 12 kilometers does not exceed ten microsorts per hour – then during strong splashes of solar cosmic rays, the dose of irradiation may exceed two millisitive per hour. In such cases, crews of civil flights are recommended to decline or even stop flying.
Researchers from the University of Kyoto and the Japanese Agency for Nuclear Energy estimated potential doses of irradiation during sudden strengthening of solar radiation eight transcontinental flights. Then, based on data on the recorded splashes of solar cosmic rays and information obtained on the basis of the assessment of the concentration of cosmogenic nuclides, scientists estimated the dose of radiation obtained during them. It turned out that in order for the recommended measures to be needed, the general dose of the radiation received for the flight should be a millizyvert, or the irradiation should exceed 80 microsorts per hour. However, the rating of the frequency of such flashes shows that the increase in solar radiation of such power occurs once in 47 and at 17 years, respectively.