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Rumors of dangerous cosmic rays passing by Earth tonight, largely identical in their phrasing, have been steadily collecting in our inbox for well over a year. The warning, which has been around since at least 2014, and whose timelessness is assured by the lack of specific dates or a discussion of time zones, is generally phrased as such: Equally imprecise is the science involved in the warning. When astronomers discuss cosmic rays, they are almost always referring to high energy protons from outside our solar system that travel at nearly the speed of light and are thought to be ejected from supernovae, the explosion of stars. Sometimes, however, the term also includes high-energy particles from the sun, as described by Caltech astronomer Richard Mewaldt: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (among other agencies) constantly monitor the sun for events that would eject solar particles in the direction of Earth. They do this not because of the health risk they pose to humans (unless you are an astronaut in space) but because of the risk they can pose to electrical grids and devices, as described by NASA: These events would cause no direct health risk to humans on the surface of Earth, and as such that non-existent risk would not be exacerbated by the presence of a cell phone near you. The idea that NASA would send out a warning to that effect is belied by the fact that not a single warning regarding solar activity from 2010 to 2015 provided any guidance on the placement of your cell phone during such an event. Additionally, the three hour window for avoiding your cell phone is nonsensical, given the fact that such events generally disrupt our magnetic field for a longer period of time. If, however, the warning was referring to a more classical definition of cosmic rays — the high energy (mostly) protons that come from supernova explosions — then the warning is on even shakier scientific ground. That’s because cosmic radiation, which is bouncing around all over the place and deflected by any magnetic field it runs into, is not easily tied to a single origin. In fact scientists only conclusively proved that cosmic rays generally come from supernovas in 2013, despite suspicions for a century prior. Cosmic radiation is a slowly varying background process that does not necessitate any action on your part. The only conceivable source of an acute cosmic radiation spike would be a stream of particles ejected directly at Earth from a nearby supernova explosion. In addition to the fact that such an event would conceivably offer decades of warning, and therefore make an exclusive scoop by Singapore TV unlikely, there are also no stars both close enough to us and close enough to the end of their life cycle to produce such an event, according to NASA: In terms of health effects to humans on the ground, this background cosmic radiation, similar to the solar radiation, poses no immediate harm and cannot be considered a health risk only unless you are chronically exposed to higher radiation levels in polar regions, according to NOAA: Because this identical warning has been online for years, and because neither interpretation of the warning’s text makes scientific sense, we rank this claim false.
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