Cosmic Rays May Make Future Deep Space Missions Shorter and More Dangerous
When Stan Lee needed something to threaten his Fantastic Four’s mission to beat the Commies into space, he picked cosmic rays. And although he probably picked that just because it sounded cool, maybe Stan was on to something. Although cosmic rays (probably) won’t turn you into a guy made of orange rocks, scientists say they may be an increasingly dangerous threat to deep space travel missions just the same. Cosmic rays are high energy radiation that comes from outside the solar system. They’re dangerous to people and electronics under any conditions, but a recent decrease in the solar activity has caused reduced solar wind and magnetic field strength, which means stronger, deadlier cosmic rays in our solar system. “The behavior of the sun has recently changed and is now in a state not observed for almost 100 years,” says associate professor Nathan Schwadron of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS). Schwadron is the lead author of a paper that addresses the problem. He’s also