Airlines taking shortcuts to get us to our destination a little quicker is nothing new - and it's certainly nothing anybody's going to complain about.
But be wary if that shortcut means passing by the poles! New research suggests that the weather in space can actually interfere with flights in polar areas. And you thought a thunderstorm was cause for concern!
Airliners take shortcuts via the north and south poles all the time. It can shave valuable hours from flight times. And give passengers a great view! However cosmic storms now seem to be becoming a genuine threat to passenger safety.
Here comes the science part.
Because the atmosphere is at its thinnest around each of the poles, it is these areas that the earth is most exposed to cosmic 'threats'. Not little green men though; rather the actual weather conditions in space. Physicists have known for years that electromagnetic energy produced by solar flares or cosmic storms can affect electronics systems.
A large burst of this energy could easily pass through our atmosphere at either of the poles and, in a nutshell, wreak havoc on the systems of any passing aircraft.
That means iffy GPS, loss of contact with 'home base', malfunctioning lights, et cetera. So, thankfully, planes won't be dropping from the sky. Polar bears and penguins across the world can give a sigh of relief. These cosmic storms and solar energy flares are fairly rare, although scientists report that the sun is about to go into an eleven year activity 'high', so they could feasibly get more frequent.
So far, the on-board problems seem to be minimal; but with 9000 flights taking a sneaky polar shortcut in 2009 alone - are we just tempting fate?
Source. Image: NASA/AP