[thamer]

Astronauts[1] also report seeing random flashes of light from time to time, believed to be due to high-energy particles interacting with their optical nerves, or cells in the retina, or maybe neurons too. Space is not a very friendly environment.

This is somewhat similar – although on a much different scale – to when Anatoli Bugorski[2] had an accident in 1978 involving a beam of protons traveling at over 99% the speed of light going through his head. He also described it as a flash "brighter than a thousand suns".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_visual_phenomena

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

[dekhn]

When I was a postdoc at berkeley I was talking to the head of the bioengineering department who mentioned the phenomena. He had actually written a paper in which he put an appropriate set of filters in front of a particle accelerator to ensure that a statistical photon was emitted at a specific frequency (IE, it output 1 photon/sec, although only on average). Then he sat in front of the filters at looked into the accelerator.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/04/archives/space-lights-tra...

Still one of the most audacious things I've seen, but he was a good physicist and did the math right, so he wasn't being unsafe.

[Natfan]

Unrelated tangent, but this is the third time in two days that I've seen Anatoli Burgorski be mentioned. Twice on HN, once on YT.

I guess I'm just noticing his name more?