From my understanding, radiation is just gamma rays which are electromagnetic waves with really high frequency (and energy). While I do understand how they can be harmful when exposed to them (killing off cells etc.), I can’t wrap my head around how does something gets contaminated by radiation and continues to be radioactive sometimes for hundreds of years even when the source of the gamma rays is long gone.
In: Physics
The gamma rays can be strong enough to knock neutrons out of other atoms which makes them unstable. Those unstable atoms might not decay immediately, but slowly over hundreds or thousands of years. It how something like the Chernobyl disaster produced so much radioactive dust, which then settled on the ground everywhere. It was all produced in the intense environment of the reactor / fire. But the radioactive dust (with damaged unstable atoms) might remain radioactive over a much longer period.
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