Photo of 'Dangerous Radiation' Reading Onboard Passenger Plane Goes Viral

A picture of the Geiger counter on a regular flight.

German traveler Carsten Möhrke recently unearthed a photograph taken during a flight he took in August 2012, revealing an unsettling radiation reading on his Geiger counter.

Traveling from his home in Vienna to Kyiv, Möhrke wanted to visit Chernobyl, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine that released radioactive material impacting the environment and public health.

Visiting the iconic site, he took with him a Geiger counter, a handheld device that detects and measures ionizing radiation, commonly used to assess radioactive levels in an environment.

In a picture taken during the flight, Möhrke recorded how the device read a background radiation level of 2.60, labeled on the device as “dangerous radiation.”

Over a decade later, Möhrke came across the picture while clearing an old computer and shared it on Reddit where it has prompted conversation.

It is true that radiation is present on aircraft during flights, and Möhrke’s picture from his flight over a decade ago shows a radiation reading of 2.6 microSieverts per hour (µSv).

But when converted to millisieverts (mSv)—a more common measurement for radiation—this is 0.0026 millisieverts per hour, which aligns with typical exposure rates during flights, as clarified by aviation and radiation experts.

“I wasn’t shocked or worried,” Möhrke told Newsweek, recalling seeing the reading on the counter, before humorously adding: “I was going to Chernobyl.” His trip to the infamous site might explain his nonchalant response to the elevated radiation levels.

Radiation may sound scary, but it is everywhere, and has been part of the Earth since it was formed. Plenty of unexpected things contain small levels of radiation, from bananas to bricks.

The Health Physics Society (HPS) specializes in information about radiation and radiation safety, and work to answer questions from the public and collate data around radiation safety. A HPS spokesperson told Newsweek: “The value shown—assuming it is 2.6 microSv/hr—is certainly not in the range that would be considered a dangerous level.”

The average annual radiation dose for a U.S. citizen is 0.62 mSv per year, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Low doses like this spread out over a long period would not cause an immediate problem. The effects of doses less than 100 mSv over many years, if any, would occur at the cell level. Such changes may not be seen for many years or even decades after exposure.

On an aircraft, humans are exposed to slightly higher levels of cosmic ionizing radiation than usual. Cosmic ionizing radiation comes from space, in which a very small amount of this radiation reaches the Earth.

At higher flight altitudes, people are exposed to slightly higher levels of cosmic radiation. The standard exposure level during a commercial flight is around 0.003 mSv per hour, an amount that is generally agreed to be within acceptable limits.

“There is radiation on an aircraft just as there is at all points of the earth,” the HPS spokesperson told Newsweek. “On the surface of the earth those come from radioactive materials in the earth’s crust—uranium, for example—radon gas, and cosmic or space radiation. Cosmic radiation is where the dose to a passenger or crew member would come from during an airline flight. In general, the higher in altitude one goes, the higher the exposure to cosmic radiation. This is true in the air or on the ground.”

But should we really be concerned about the radiation levels when traveling on an airplane?

“Crew of airlines fly longer flights and at higher altitudes than most passengers and, hence, receive higher radiation doses. For some of them, doses may reach much higher levels, but passengers need not be concerned,” the HPS spokesperson explained.

Reddit Users React

Möhrke was prompted to share the picture while cleaning out an old hard disk on his computer, and the post quickly gained attention with more than 12,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments on Reddit.

“I knew we pick up rads during spaceflight. Picking up rads on an airline is news to me,” wrote one Reddit user.

But others weren’t so shocked: “Not great, not terrible,” one comment read, while another Reddit user joked: “You’re not gonna believe what the sun is made out of.”

Another commenter wrote: “Now that’s interesting.”

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