Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 1973
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1973natur.241..112y&link_type=abstract
Nature, Volume 241, Issue 5385, pp. 112-113 (1973).
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Scientific paper
THE astronauts who flew on Apollo Lunar Missions 11 to 15 reported the observation of light flashes at a rate about one per minute when they were travelling outside the geomagnetic sphere of the Earth and their eyes were dark-adapted1. Experiments to determine the causes of the phenomenon2-6 confirm that the flashes were caused either by direct interaction between energetic heavy primary cosmic rays or neutrons and the retina, or by Čerenkov radiation produced by muons. We have already reported7 that the flux of stopping cosmic nuclei of medium and heavy charges at the levels at which SSTs fly (60,000 to 70,000 foot) is of the order of 10-4 [cm2-min-ster-(MeV/n)]-1 with a medium energy of about 120 MeV/n. If every nucleus in these categories could produce a flash in the human eye, the frequency of light flashes would be 2 to 3 per hour for an eye of 2.5 cm diameter subtending a solid angle of 2π radian. But it was noticed in the Berkeley experiments8,9 that fast alpha particles (up to 240 MeV) did produce flashes and streaks when they stopped inside the eye or penetrated through the retina. Because the α-particle flux is much higher than that of heavy nuclei in primary cosmic rays, the possibility of observing light flashes on SST planes owing to α-particles cannot be ruled out. We have investigated data obtained from a US Air Force plane during 80 h of supersonic high altitude flight in 1970.
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