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All three isotopes are radioactive (i.e., they are radioisotopes), and the most abundant and stable is uranium-238, with a half-life of 4.4683 × 10 9 years (about the age of the Earth). Uranium-238 is an alpha emitter , decaying through the 18-member uranium series into lead-206 .
Radioactive isotope table "lists ALL radioactive nuclei with a half-life greater than 1000 years", incorporated in the list above. The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear physics properties F.G. Kondev et al. 2021 Chinese Phys. C 45 030001. The PDF of this article lists the half-lives of all known radioactives nuclides.
They have shorter half-lives than primordial radionuclides. They arise in the decay chain of the primordial isotopes thorium-232, uranium-238, and uranium-235. Examples include the natural isotopes of polonium and radium. Cosmogenic isotopes, such as carbon-14, are present because they are continually being formed in the atmosphere due to ...
All other isotopes have half-lives shorter than one hour, except for 231 U (half-life 4.2 days) and 240 U (half-life 14.1 hours). [7] The shortest-lived known isotope is 221 U, with a half-life of 660 nanoseconds, and it is expected that the hitherto unknown 220 U has an even shorter half-life. [122]
This isotope has one unpaired proton and one unpaired neutron, so either the proton or the neutron can decay to the other particle, which has opposite isospin. This particular nuclide (though not all nuclides in this situation) is more likely to decay through beta plus decay (61.52(26) % [27]) than through electron capture (38.48(26) % [27]).
Even neutrons without significant kinetic energy are indirectly ionizing, and are thus a significant radiation hazard. Not all materials are capable of neutron activation; in water, for example, the most common isotopes of both types atoms present (hydrogen and oxygen) capture neutrons and become heavier but remain stable forms of those atoms.
Of the 26 "monoisotopic" elements that have only a single stable isotope, all but one have an odd atomic number—the single exception being beryllium. In addition, no odd-numbered element has more than two stable isotopes, while every even-numbered element with stable isotopes, except for helium, beryllium, and carbon, has at least three.
Eighteen isotopes and four nuclear isomers are known for einsteinium, with mass numbers 240–257. [2] All are radioactive; the most stable one, 252 Es, has half-life 471.7 days. [44] The next most stable isotopes are 254 Es (half-life 275.7 days), [45] 255 Es (39.8 days), and 253 Es (20.47 days). All the other isotopes have half-lives shorter ...