• Question: what causes something to become radioactive?

    Asked by Martha to Kate on 11 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Kate Wright

      Kate Wright answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      Ah, excellent question.
      Some atoms are just naturally radioactive, like if you take a thousand carbon atoms, some of them will be carbon-13, which is radioactive.

      Some things are what’s called ‘fusion products’. When a big heavy atom breaks into pieces, sometimes the pieces are radioactive.

      There’s also what’s called ‘activation products’, which is where a material gets exposed to radiation and some of the atoms become radioactive – for example, if you have an iron pipe in a nuclear reactor, all the radiation from the reactor can make the pipe become radioactive.

      There are some types of atoms that only exist in a lab – you never find them in nature, but scientists can make them. They’re generally radioactive.

      I hope that helps! It’s a bit complicated to try to explain but basically some things are naturally radioactive and others can be man made.

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