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Other sources include X-rays from medical radiography examinations and muons, mesons, positrons, neutrons and other particles that constitute the secondary cosmic rays that are produced after primary cosmic rays interact with Earth's atmosphere. Gamma rays, X-rays, and the higher energy range of ultraviolet light constitute the ionizing part of ...
Natural color X-ray photogram of a wine scene. Note the edges of hollow cylinders as compared to the solid candle. William Coolidge explains medical imaging and X-rays.. An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays.
X-rays are also emitted by stellar corona and are strongly emitted by some types of nebulae. However, X-ray telescopes must be placed outside the Earth's atmosphere to see astronomical X-rays, since the great depth of the atmosphere of Earth is opaque to X-rays (with areal density of 1000 g/cm 2), equivalent to 10 meters thickness of water. [16]
Natural cosmic rays are made up primarily of relativistic protons but also include heavier atomic nuclei like helium ions and HZE ions. In the atmosphere such particles are often stopped by air molecules, and this produces short-lived charged pions, which soon decay to muons, a primary type of cosmic ray radiation that reaches the surface of ...
X-ray machine of Siemens und Halske from 1912 Two X-ray tubes. The Röntgen Memorial Site gives an insight into the particle physics of the late 19th century. It shows an experimental set-up of cathodic rays beside the apparatus of the discovery. An experiment of penetrating solid materials by X-rays is shown in the historic laboratory of Röntgen.
Röntgen realized some invisible rays coming from the tube were passing through the cardboard to make the screen glow: they were passing through an opaque object to affect the film behind it. [5] The first radiograph. Röntgen discovered X-rays' medical use when he made a picture of his wife's hand on a photographic plate formed due to X-rays.
For example, carbon-14, a radioactive nuclide with a half-life of only 5700(30) years, [27] is constantly produced in Earth's upper atmosphere due to interactions between cosmic rays and nitrogen. Nuclides that are produced by radioactive decay are called radiogenic nuclides , whether they themselves are stable or not.
Rough plot of Earth's atmospheric absorption and scattering (or opacity) of various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Most UV and X-rays are blocked by absorption first from molecular nitrogen, and then (for wavelengths in the upper UV) from the electronic excitation of dioxygen and finally ozone at the mid-range of UV. Only 30% of the ...