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October 7, 2005: Last month, the sun went haywire. Almost every day for two weeks in early September, solar flares issued from a giant sunspot named "active region 798/808." X-rays ionized Earth’s upper atmosphere. Solar protons peppered the Moon. It was not a good time to be in space.
Or was it?
During the storms, something strange happened onboard the International Space Station (ISS): radiation levels dropped.
"The crew of the ISS absorbed about 30% fewer cosmic rays than usual," says Frank Cucinotta, NASA's chief radiation health officer at the Johnson Space Center. "The storms actually improved the radiation environment inside the station."
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