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Airlines
worldwide have grounded their Airbus A320 fleets to carry out urgent
software updates following an incident in October, when a JetBlue aircraft
on a flight between the US and Mexico suddenly lost altitude after a
pitch-down event, without any pilot input. According to a BBC report,
"Around 6,000 A320 planes were thought to be affected," but many were
able to fly again within hours after undergoing the software update.
It's thought that the glitch on the JetBlue aircraft was caused by
corruption of data in flight avionics computers, responsible for
calculating elevation. A press release by Airbus on 28th November
mentions "intense solar radiation" as being the possible cause of the
recent event.
Cosmic
radiation, consisting of high energy particles, mostly originates from
the Sun, but also from the remnants of supernovae in our galaxy, the
Milky Way, and other distant galaxies. It's more intense at higher
altitudes where the thinner atmosphere has less of a shielding effect.
The Earth's magnetic field also protects us from cosmic radiation, by steering particles safely into the poles, generating the spectacular phenomenon of
the Northern and Southern Lights in the process. Cosmic rays can affect
electronics, and there have been cases of glitches in satellites. According to a Scientific American article, "Extensive
background radiation studies by IBM in the 1990s suggest that computers
typically experience about one cosmic-ray-induced error per 256
megabytes of RAM per month."
This article from the EPA provides some further information on cosmic radiation and outlines its effects on passengers and crew on aircraft.