Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: system on 13/04/2011 13:30:05

Title: When atoms become radioactive, what do they radiate?
Post by: system on 13/04/2011 13:30:05: When atoms become radioactive, what kind of radiation comes out? gamma rays? x-rays? light?
Asked by Teo Gibson, Facebook

Go to the show page. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/2011.04.10/)

[chapter podcast=3078 track=11.04.10/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.04.10_8325.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) or Listen to the Answer[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/11.04.10/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.04.10_8325.mp3)
Title: When atoms become radioactive, what do they radiate?
Post by: syhprum on 13/04/2011 19:44:48: Radio active substances Emit electrons or positrons (beta rays), Helium nuclei (alpha particles) neutrinos and anti-neutrinos and energetic electromagnetic radiation (Gamma rays).
This is from memory and the list may not be exhaustive
Title: When atoms become radioactive, what do they radiate?
Post by: Phractality on 13/04/2011 20:43:57: An individual atomic nucleus is either stable or unstable. Certain combinations of protons and neutrons are stable; all others are unstable.

An unstable nucleus has a certain half-life, which means it has 50% chance of changing to a different kind of nucleus within a certain period of time. When it changes, it may emit a proton, a neutron and/or a gamma-ray photon−−depending on what it was and what it becomes.

A radioactive substance is any substance that contains unstable atomic nuclei. Some non-radioactive substances can be made radioactive by bombarding them with protons, neutrons or gamma rays, thus converting some of the stable nuclei to unstable nuclei.