| Pages:
1
2 |
IrC
International Hazard
Posts: 2710
Registered: 7-3-2005
Location: Eureka
Member Is Offline
Mood: Discovering
|
|
If the Gammas from Radium are upwards of 10 Mev the glow is no mystery at all. I should have thought to look this up but forgot about this thread.
Electrons knocked out of simple molecules of air are going to cause a corona glow which will be blue so mystery solved. Radium in a pile of enough
Microcuries is so damn radioactive it is a simple corona glow. This explains to me why it looked like any other corona I have ever seen.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
|
|
|
unionised
International Hazard
Posts: 5104
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: UK
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Can I just point out that this "but 1.33 for any water vapor in the air." is wrong.
That's the value for liquid water. The value for the vapour will be roughly 1000 times nearer to 1 because it's roughly 1000 times less dense.
I doubt you will get Cherenkov radiation because radium is an alpha emitter and the alphas are too heavy to get spat out fast enough to exceed the
local value of the speed of light.
However, they are good at ionising air and ions will often emit light as they recombine.
It's just possible that, in a vacuum, the radiation would spall traces of Ra from the surface and excite them.
I believe that radium gives a red flame test so perhaps it would give an incredibly faint red glow.
Of course, as it sat there well lagged in a vacuum it would warm up which would increase the amount of radium vapour in the vicinity.
|
|
|
Panache
International Hazard
Posts: 1290
Registered: 18-10-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: Instead of being my deliverance, she had a resemblance to a Kat named Frankenstein
|
|
Wizard I hereby anoint thee Sir Provider of the Posh Factoid
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2 |
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
