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2007-01-30 16:19:36 · 3 answers · asked by presentraj 1 in Science & Mathematics Physics

3 answers

Uranium is an element, of which the basic common "building block" is the atom. Atoms are made up of particles called Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons (and there are even smaller parts that make up those) . The protons and neutrons are together in a ball in the center of the atom, called the nucleus, and the electrons "orbit" the nucleas in a pattern, called an orbital shell.

The type of element an atom is depends on the number of protons, which have a positive charge. An element can have different counts of neutrons, within a range. Different counts of neutrons in a constant-proton nucleus are called "isotopes" of an element.

While there are many ways for an atom to decay, a typical way for Uranium to decay is when the nucleas of a Uranium atoms absorbs an extra neutron, changing into a different isotope of Uranium (heavier), and for complex reasons that mix of protons and neutrons is unstable and doesn't want to stay together. The nucleas actually splits into several parts. Two new elements (each containing approx. 1/2 of the original protons, neutrons, and electrons). However, some particles are also released as "radiation". For this type of radioactive decay, called fission, typically 2 or 3 neutrons are kicked out of the splitting uranium nucleus, and several photons are as well (photons are what make up light, or X-rays, or gamma rays. All are similar, but at different frequencies when they are in wave form). The two halves of the nucleus are new atoms, such as Xenon. The photons and neutrons fly out with a lot of energy and can cause damage when they collide with other atoms. These flying particles/waves are called "radiation". They get their energy from mass within the original uranium nucleus that was converted to energy (movement) of the radiation particles (released neutrons and photons). The amount of energy given to the particles can be calculated by taking the difference in the mass of the uranium before the fission from the summed up mass of the remaining particles after the fission, and multiplying by the speed of light twice. This is the famous E = mc^2 equation. The mass of all the particles after the collision will be very slightly less, as it was converted to energy, literally converted.

2007-01-30 16:39:49 · answer #1 · answered by D V 1 · 0 0

There are 3 types of radiation. Gamma rays, which is an EM wave, alpha particles, and beta particles. Uranium emits all three

2007-01-30 16:28:00 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Uranium is naturally radioactive. It thus emits subatomic paticles (alpha particles) to form another chemical element (i think that's transmutation) This ocurs randomly, but the general idea is the unstable nulei disintergrates by emitting em particles

2007-01-30 16:34:38 · answer #3 · answered by raqandre 3 · 0 0

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