Polonium 210
A polonium 210 source in a needle is used for Alpha particle experiments such as cloud chambers. The activity is less than 0.1 uCurie and the half life is 138 days. I had better get on and do stuff before it goes away.
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The polonium needle source is on the Geiger counter showing the background radiation rising from an average of 42 CPM on the left of the graph to around 600 on the right.
However, compared to Americium 1 uCurie with a count of 80,000, this is much smaller. One would expect that at the time of manufacture, 0.1 uCurie would give a count of 8,000 rather than 600. Hence the activity is only 7.5% of predicted. This suggests that the sample is 515 days old (on July 8, 2013). This is calculated with an radiation decay calculator using the half life of 138 days.
It is a pure Alpha particle emitter with energy of 5.3045 MeV which similar to that of americium at 5.486 MeV. It has however, only one tenth of the Alpha activity of a typical 1.0 uCurie americium sample in a smoke detector. Where do you get this stuff? Images Scientific Instruments is where I got mine. This stuff just gets sent in the mail and has all the approvals for this. It is only one tenth of the Alpha activity of an americium sample in a smoke detector.
It has an interesting history. It was thought to be the cause of death of a Russian dissident Livitenko. It was used as a component of the ignitor for Fat Man, the Nagasaki atom bomb.
Now the medical journal, The Lancet gives evidence for Arafat also being poisoned with polonium.
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Photo Date: Feb 16, 2013