To how much radiation are you exposed on a transcontinental flight?
You often hear people object to being scanned because of the "radiation" argument. I find this always quite amusing from people just being exposed to higher radiation levels during the average airplane flight. I once read a article on the levels of being exposed to radiation in everyday live, but I lost the article. I remember that the exposure in planes was quit substantial. Somewhere in the order of one body scan is equal to 10 minutes of your average transcontinental flight.
So my question is, to how much more radiation are you really exposed while traveling in an airplane, compared to staying on the ground?
Best Answer
On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, you'll receive a radiation dose of 40 microsieverts. Equivalent doses:
- Two (2) chest X-Rays
- Eight (8) dental X-Rays
- Eating 400 bananas
- Sleeping next to someone for 2.2 years
XKCD has an excellent visualization depicting these doses, including the BED!
Source: http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Pictures about "To how much radiation are you exposed on a transcontinental flight?"
radiation exposure during an intercontinental flight
More answers regarding to how much radiation are you exposed on a transcontinental flight?
Answer 2
You can find a very nice article about radiation exposure while flying [here] on airspacemag6.
You can calculate the radiation you're exposed to, during a flight, here ,by giving departure and arrival cities.
Now, for a more practical aproach, Using the well established BED unit :) (Banana Equivalent Dose), it seems that:
- flying from London to New York is equivalent to 400 BED (additional information).
- To suffer from severe radiation poisoning you need 20 million BED . (additional information)
- In 24h, on ground, you receive approximately an average of 11 BED (additional information)
- A chest x-ray is equivalent to 200 BED (additional information)
Answer 3
As a physicist who worked for many years on the backscatter imagers, I can assure you the dose to the skin is very low. It is required that there be at least 1mm of aluminum filtration equivalent in the beam to remove the very low energy x-rays that would increase dose to the skin.
Answer 4
We recently developed a simple online calculator so that concerned pilots, aircrew, and frequent flyers can estimate radiation exposures during air travel. It is freely available at icaro.world for anyone who needs it.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Chay García, MART PRODUCTION, MART PRODUCTION, George Dolgikh @ Giftpundits.com