ABSTRACT
It is important to distinguish between exposure and dose. Exposure is the amount of ionizing radiation striking an object. Dose is the amount of energy absorbed by an object as a result of radiation exposure. As humans, we are exposed to a lot of radiation in the form of high-energy photons, which are part of cosmic radiation. Because they are in the X-ray/gamma ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum, their odds of interacting with us (we are made up of mostly low Z atoms!) are relatively low. Therefore, our dose from cosmic radiation is relatively low, even though our exposure is high.
