eli5 why does riding in an airplane cause radiation exposure? Does the airplane itself not block it?

Question

eli5 why does riding in an airplane cause radiation exposure? Does the airplane itself not block it?

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Answer 1

Mass blocks radiation, and planes are intentionally built to be as light as possible. If you’re using thin aluminum, it won’t block anywhere near as much radiation as something like lead would. The lead is heavier because it’s more dense, because it has more mass.

Air has a surprisingly large amount of mass when you consider how tall the sky is. So it does a pretty good job of blocking radiation before it hits the ground. The thin aluminum sheet from the plane won’t make up for all of the air that you’re “above” when flying.

Answer 2

I took my geiger counter on a flight once just out of interest to measure the radiation inflight. It was around 20 times ground level at about 23,000 feet.

As has already been mentioned, the plane’s skin provides little to no shielding particularly higher energy particles which come from outer space.

Aluminium for example will only stop x-rays in the lower end of that band (soft x-rays). Hard x-rays (higher energy) and above including gamma will sail straight through.

Answer 3

I took my geiger counter on a flight once just out of interest to measure the radiation inflight. It was around 20 times ground level at about 23,000 feet.

As has already been mentioned, the plane’s skin provides little to no shielding particularly higher energy particles which come from outer space.

Aluminium for example will only stop x-rays in the lower end of that band (soft x-rays). Hard x-rays (higher energy) and above including gamma will sail straight through.

Answer 4

I took my geiger counter on a flight once just out of interest to measure the radiation inflight. It was around 20 times ground level at about 23,000 feet.

As has already been mentioned, the plane’s skin provides little to no shielding particularly higher energy particles which come from outer space.

Aluminium for example will only stop x-rays in the lower end of that band (soft x-rays). Hard x-rays (higher energy) and above including gamma will sail straight through.