Why is most everything at least a little radioactive?

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I watched the Chernobyl miniseries recently and read up about some of the specifics a bit. A lot of it is still beyond my comprehension, but I ran into the picture below (i hope you can see it):

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It says (among other things) that sleeping next to someone increases your absorbed dose of radiation, and also that eating a banana increases your absorbed dose. From what I understand so far, many things (I assume mostly organic things) are a bit radioactive. Is this true and if so, why?

In: Physics

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because space is highly radioactive.

The sun is an absolutely massive nuclear fusion reactor spewing out insane levels of radiation into space.

The Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere keeps us protected against most of it, but not completely.

Some rays hit the ground. Some hit air molecules and turn them into other (radioactive) particles.

Radioactivity is only dangerous at certain levels and in certain forms.

Some of the most dangerous forms did get released in Chernobyl and are not present in significant quantities in nature. But those forms also disappear quite quickly.

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