SuperHero Element time. THOR: An essential part of his hammer is of course, Thorium.
For ordinary mortals, Thorium 2% is added to tungsten welding rods. Here it has a count of 564 CPM (counts per minute). Background radiation is about 50 CPM.
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Trinitite is glassified soil from the Trinity site of the first atomic blast in 1945. 67 years later it is only mildly radioactive. The site is now covered and new samples are not able to be collected. Nevertheless it was only a few dollars on eBay for this 1.83 g sample. This sample is seen over the port of my pancake Geiger counter.
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Radioactive americium 241 from a smoke detector is a potent alpha radiation emitter with an energy of 5.38 MeV. Alpha particles are helium nucleii (2 protons and 2 neutrons).
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Uranium ore (Yellowcake) emits gamma radiation. The Geiger counter reads 108,000 CPM through the plastic of the container.
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A Geiger counter measures various types of ionising radiation such as Gamma rays. Shown here with antique Uranium marbles that were bright due to some fluorescence.
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