Is it true that just looking at it would irradiate a person enough to be fatal? If so, how would it achieve that?
If not, how is the misconception wrong? What *would* it do?
In: Chemistry
It’s a big pile of nuclear fuel and other materials. When the reactor went into meltdown lots of things literally melted. They dripped down, cooled and solidified.
It is no longer so reactive that it will kill rapidly, but prolonged exposure will give radiation burns, radiation sickness and so on.
It’s a bunch of melted metal (well, it was melted and now it’s mostly solidified in the shape you’ve seen pictures of).
The metal was actually the radioactive fuel that powered the nuclear reactor. It melted because the nuclear reaction got out of control and generated too much heat too fast.
It is as dangerous as you’ve heard, because it’s still extremely radioactive. It’s not actively melting or exploding because the shape has changed and spread out enough that the reaction is no longer self-sustaining to the extent that it was before (like a bomb or at least a very active nuclear reaction) but it is still highly radioactive waste with much of the behavior of an active nuclear reactor.
I assume you are referring to the Chernobyl power plant. When the Chernobyl accident occurred and the reactor blew up, the fuel from the reactor was no longer being cooled. This fuel continued to heat up until it melted. The melted fuel dribbled down from the ruined reactor into a puddle in the basement of the power plant, and that puddle flowed down into the sub-basement levels through broken pipes.
The elephant’s foot is composed of “corium”, which is a mixture of melted reactor fuel, other melted metals (the structure of the reactor), as well as melted sand and concrete which the molten fuel encountered. The corium is intensely radioactive because it contains spent (used) nuclear reactor fuel.
The corium is extremely radioactive, but its radioactivity is decreasing exponentially. When it was first created it was so radioactive that it generated enough heat to melt concrete, but now it is only a few degrees above room temperature. Scientists can spend brief periods of time (less than a minute) near the corium before they have to leave, to avoid getting a dangerous dose of radioactivity. The safe time limit is increasing slowly.
Radiation is like microscopic bullets. When you are near a radioactive object, tiny particles shoot through you, and these particles can leave a path of destruction. Your body is able to repair this kind of damage to a certain extent, but if too much damage occurs, you develop radiation poisoning, as all the damaged cells break down simultaneously and overwhelm your body’s ability to repair itself.
Radiation generally doesn’t kill someone instantly. Absorbing a high dose will make your body extra susceptible to cancer. An even larger does will result in burns, hair loss, anemia, and digestive problems. Finally, a large enough does will result in severe internal and external burning followed by coma and death within hours.
I’m not sure what the dose off of the elephant’s foot was a few weeks after the accident, but it is quite possible that a lethal dose could be absorbed within a few seconds of being in the same room. The elephant’s foot wasn’t discovered until several years after the accident, and when it was found it was still dangerous enough that scientists collecting samples had to sprint into and out of the room in only a handful of seconds.
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