Eye light flashes on the Mir space station
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Updated: Oct 1, 2026

Bringing the Visible Universe into Focus with Robo-AO
Published on: February 12, 2013
S Avdeev1, V Bidoli, M Casolino
1Russian Space Corporation "Energia" Korolev, Korolev, Moscow, Russia.
Abstract:
The phenomenon of light flashes (LF) in eyes for people in space has been investigated onboard Mir. Data on particles hitting the eye have been collected with the SilEye detectors, and correlated with human observations. It is found that a nucleus in the radiation environment of Mir has roughly a 1% probability to cause an LF, whereas the proton probability is almost three orders of magnitude less. As a function of LET, the LF probability increases above 10 keV/micrometer, reaching about 5% at around 50 keV/micrometer.
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