The Sun Doesn't Care About Your Flight Schedule

Earth's Van Allen radiation belts, the inner and outer bands of trapped high energy particles that swell dramatically during solar storms, the very radiation environment aircraft at cruising altitude briefly share in during an extreme space weather event ( Credit : NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

New research shows that extreme space weather can significantly raise radiation exposure on commercial flights and increase electronic faults in aircraft systems. A severe 1956 scale solar storm could expose passengers to a year's worth of radiation in a single flight, and the researchers point to last year's Airbus A320 grounding, triggered by a solar radiation linked flight computer fault, as proof this isn't theoretical. To address the gap, the team has proposed a new aviation specific radiation scale designed to give airlines clearer, more reliable guidance on when to monitor, reroute, or ground flights during severe events.

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