How can distant supernovae, black holes and other cosmic events cause a desktop computer to crash?

The answer is that they produce cosmic rays, which produce high energy particles in the atmosphere that can occasionally hit RAM chips. The moving particles trail electrons, which can infiltrate chips’ circuits and cause errors.

That’s why computer chip giant Intel was in December awarded a US patent for the idea of building cosmic ray detectors into every chip .

When cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere, they collide with air molecules, producing an “air shower” of high energy protons and neutrons and other particles. It is these that Intel wants to look for. If they get near the wrong part of a chip, the electrons they trail can create a digital 1 or 0 out of nowhere, something called a “soft error“.

Computer giant IBM thoroughly investigated the problem in the mid 90s, testing nearly 1,000 memory devices at sea level, in mountains and in caves. They showed that at higher altitude, more soft errors occurred, while in the caves there were nearly none. That proved cosmic rays were to blame.

As RAM chips became more dense, the problem was predicted to get worse. But better designs and error checking techniques have helped, with systems used in planes and spacecraft getting beefed-up error checking because they are at greater risk.
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