Health Information Center – CedrikaProvencher

How safe is a commercial passenger aircraft of the many hazards of radiation scattered in the sky? Researchers began to commemorate the passengers exposed to the danger of radiation exposure when there is lightning. Fortunately, the condition was rare.

Lightning storm, – the occasional plane encountered -, according to researchers more dangerous than the threat of turbulence. Strength of radiation from lightning is thought to be the strength of gamma rays is higher than X-rays

Researchers found if the passenger plane near the lightning flashed through exposure to radiation equivalent to 400 times more powerful than X-rays

X-ray exposure is not a disease but its impact is very big because it can reduce the body’s immune makes someone so prone to disease. X-ray exposure can trigger even suspected cancer risk and make stunted fetal growth.

As reported by LiveScience, Sunday (31/1/2010), exposure to radiation in the air is still mysterious, but expected more in the direction of gamma rays. It is conceivable, exposed to X-rays dangerous enough let alone hit by gamma-ray exposure has a very large penetration in the human body.

But fortunately the plane incident lightning storm passed very, very small. The pilot itself will usually avoid flying in the path of a thunderstorm.

Passenger aircraft will only be exposed to high radiation doses is if the plane happened to be near the origin of lightning or a flash of gamma rays, but that is not how often. A burst of radiation is also very fast and quite far, a few hundred yards from the clouds.

“We know that commercial aircraft are usually struck by lightning only once or twice a year,” said Joe Dwyer, a professor of physics and space sciences from Florida Tech.

“But we do not know is how often the planes are in a place like that and just received a high radiation dose. We believe it is rare, but more research is needed to answer this question definitively,” he continued.

Researchers did not measure high levels of radiation directly to the aircraft. Instead, they estimate the radiation based on satellite observation and X-rays and gamma rays.

With the orbiting satellite data, researchers studying terrestrial gamma ray flashes (Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes / TGFs), which is a mysterious phenomenon that appears at the same level with the aircraft. Researchers do not know why TGFs may appear and are anticipated during the electrical storm.

This research has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Researchers agree the need for further research about the radiation threat to passenger planes.

Current health practitioners are also very carefully done with X-ray detection is only done if very desperate because of health hazards that will be returned to the front.