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For the next three years, radiation detectors on board Virgin Atlantic planes
will be monitoring the radiation exposure of crew and passengers. The study is
designed to measure the intensity of radiation coming from deep space, the Sun
and the Earth’s magnetosphere during the peak of the Sun’s 11-year cycle of
activity. Aircrews are more likely to develop breast, prostate, colonic, rectal
and brain cancers. “But the extent and nature of the risk to aircraft and crew
is poorly understood,” says Bob Bentley of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory
in Dorking, Surrey.