[ RadSafe ] " Lightning-produced radiation a potential health concern for air travelers "

[Jaro Franta]

Franz,

 

>From what I have read in the past, the radiation is assumed to be from rare
events of nuclear fusion (neutrons have been recorded in these events).

 

One postulated mechanism is the surface ablation of a large and perfectly
spherical hail stone (rare) by lightning – which induces a converging
shockwave strong enough to heat a very tiny bit of matter at the center to
fusion temperatures.

 

It is not clear what the nuclear fusion reaction is, since deuterium is so
rare on earth.

 

Perhaps a small amount of C-N-O catalyzed hydrogen fusion.... No one knows.

 

Anyone hear of other possible scenarios ? (Thnx)

 

 

 Jaro

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

 

 

From: Franz Schönhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer at gmail.com] 
Sent: December-09-09 1:13 PM
To: Jaro Franta
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] " Lightning-produced radiation a potential health
concern for air travelers "

 

Dear Jaro, dear RASAFErs.

 

Your message is very interesting - especially about the millisecond dose. Is
this to be taken serious (sure not)? I did not know about radiation doses
following a lightning discharge - did anybody else? That airplane passengers
and staff are exposed to additional radiation compared to the ground is
known since decades. I enjoy to look at my very primitive doseratemeter when
flyng and watching the rise of the dose rate in accordance with flight
altutide.  Hundreds of papers have been published on this topic. But as
mentioned above the problem of lightning discharges has not been addressed. 

 

What is the lightning discharge causing? Alpha, beta, gamma, meson, cosmic
rays ..... discharges? 

Questions over questions - but of course we have a new health concern for
airtravelers. 

I volunteer to travel by air to the US South West and back for free, taking
the risk of lightning into account.

 

Best regards,

 

Franz

 

2009/12/8 Jaro Franta <jaro-10kbq at sympatico.ca>

http://www.physorg.com/news179426300.html
Lightning-produced radiation a potential health concern for air travelers
December 7, 2009

<SNIP>
"If an aircraft happened to be in or near the high-field region when either
a lightning discharge or a TGF event is occurring, then the radiation dose
received by passengers and crew members inside the aircraft could
potentially approach 10 rem in less than one millisecond," the paper says.

Ten rem is considered the maximum safe radiation exposure over a person's
lifetime. It is equal to 400 chest X-rays, three CAT scans or 7,500 hours of
flight time in normal conditions. All airplane passengers are exposed to
slightly elevated radiation levels due to cosmic rays.
<SNIP>







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