QUESTION Guilherme Cardoso, Sao Paulo, SP
They are high frequency electromagnetic waves similar to light and rays X. The difference is that they carry a lot more energy. With high penetration power in matter, the rays gamma they can only be stopped by extremely dense elements, such as lead. Its origin comes from the process called radioactive decay, in which an atom at the nuclear level emits energy into the environment until it gains stability.
You rays gamma have many practical uses. Meet some of them.
– (Denis Freitas/)
The irradiation with rays gamma is used in food industry to decontaminate and increase the durability of products. Irradiated foods take longer to ripen and are sterilized against microorganisms. Thus, they can stay longer on supermarket shelves.
– (Denis Freitas/)
the radiation gamma is harmful to living tissues because it has ionizing power, and medicine takes advantage of this with the radiotherapy. You rays gamma they can, with controlled energy, be directed to destroy a patient’s malignant tumor while preserving the healthy tissues of the rest of the body.
– (Denis Freitas/)
Scientists employ rays gamma in the laboratory in the technique called Mössbauer spectroscopy: they analyze how much each chemical species absorbs from rays gamma and thus can identify them. You rays are also used to point microscopic flaws and cracks in large metal structures such as industrial piping.
Hulk in real life? Impossible
During the experiment with a pump rays gamma, the scientist Bruce Banner became the famous green giant of the Marvel publishing house. The character was created in 1962, at the height of the nuclear age, when fear of radioactivity was spreading across the US and the world – the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been detonated a few years before.
In real life, the high dose of radiation applied to scientist Bruce Banner would cause immediate death as a result of severe burns, risk of developing malignant tumors and loss of organ function, leading to failure of body systems.
CONSULTANCY Ulisses Condomitti, doctor in chemistry and creator of the site Look Nano
SOURCES Websites Brazil School It is World Education