Have you ever heard of the Chernobyl disaster? In 1986, the Chernobyl disaster was recorded as one of the most severe nuclear power accidents in the past century. The No. 4 reactor in the power plant exploded when staff ran tests on its turbine ability. The catastrophic impact on the surrounding community forced over 68 thousand people to evacuate.
Now, Chernobyl remains a dilapidated area. Total clean-up of radioactive waste would not be completed until 2065. YouTubers have recorded videos at Chernobyl, walking around the dusty land and narrating its miserable past. But, don’t forget that a nuclear reactor exploded just 4 decades ago. How are people able to survive these intense radiation? Well, it’s related to the concept of nuclear decay.
What is Nuclear Decay?
Unstable nuclei frequently undergo radiation to release energy for stability. The energy released is hyperactive, which generates radioactivity from a macroscopic point of view. Nuclear decay describes the process in which unstable atomic nuclei lose energy by radiation. Nuclear decay has numerous modes, but the most common ones can be classified into the three major modes below.
“A”denotes the mass number, while “Z” denotes the atomic number. For demonstration, we often show the daughter nucleus as “Y”, and the parent nucleus as “X”.
When human bodies are exposed to radioactive materials, such particles could enter the body and cause harm through the process of nuclear decay, emitting helium nuclei, electrons, and even gamma rays. These effects can increase the possibilities of genetic mutations, causing uncontrolled cell replication and eventually leading to malignant cancer.
You might wonder, how are people not affected by radioactivity in Chernobyl? The answer lies in the rapid decay of radioactive particles.
Half-life and Radioactivity
How do we measure radioactivity? Considering the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, we know that the future event of a particle is impossible to predict. In other words, we don’t know when nuclear decay would happen on a single atom. However, the radioactive materials are made up of numerous identical atoms, so the overall decay rate can be then expressed by half-life (the time required for a number of atoms to reduce to half of its initial value).
λ is the decay constant
t ½ is the half-life of the decaying quantity (* ½ is a subscript)
With the formula above, we are able to determine the radioactivity of elements. Ranging from 10-24 seconds to 1030 seconds (1024 years), the half-life of radioactive isotopes can be as fast as lightning or billions of trillions of centuries old (check this site for more info).
For the most unstable-most radioactive-atoms, such as H15, they will quickly “decompose”. And for those well-known radioactive isotopes, such as U238, they are not radioactive enough to harm people within a short time of exposure.
Conclusion
After learning about half-life and its impact on radioactivity, we realize why it is safe to stay in Chernobyl for a little while. Most of the hyper-radioactive atoms have decayed, and the remaining are much more stable ones. However, it does not mean that elements like uranium are innocuous. They are still radioactive and might harm you cumulatively. Nevertheless, it does sound cool to be around anything nuclear.
Note: Veritas Newspaper cannot be held responsible for related nuclear disasters after the release of this article.
Works Cited
Collins, M. (2022). Radioactive Survival Lessons from the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. [online] MIRA Safety. Available at: https://www.mirasafety.com/blogs/news/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-radioactive-survival [Accessed 15 Mar. 2024].
Helmenstine, A. (2021). Radioactivity and the Types of Radioactive Decay. [online] Science Notes and Projects. Available at: https://sciencenotes.org/radioactivity-and-the-types-of-radioactive-decay/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2024].
Wikipedia Contributors (2024). Chernobyl disaster. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster [Accessed 15 Mar. 2024].
Wikipedia Contributors (2024). List of radioactive nuclides by half-life. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_nuclides_by_half-life [Accessed 15 Mar. 2024].
Wikipedia Contributors (2024). Radioactive decay. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay [Accessed 15 Mar. 2024].
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