Isotopes that are unstable decay into stable species. How they decay, releasing either particles or radiation, varies from isotope to isotope. The...Become a member and unlock all Study Answers Start today. Try
In nuclear physics, a half-life only relates to unstable isotopes. Unstable isotopes are variations of an element's atoms that either have too much or too little energy in the nucleus to maintain a stable nucleus. The nucleus always wants to reach a stable state, which requires unstable isoto...
Carbon-14 is more unstable than carbon-12, so it's radioactive: it naturally disintegrates, giving off subatomic particles in the process, to turn itself into nitrogen. Carbon-12 and carbon-14 are called isotopes of carbon. An isotope is simply an atom with a different number of neutrons ...
even a few nearby stars have exploded with a nearly Earth-shattering kaboom. One piece of evidence for a nearby supernova comes from an unstable isotope of iron whose only earthly traces come from grains of sediment laced with its daughter and granddaughter isotopes, found in polar ice cores ...
(a positively charged electron, also called an antielectron) and aneutrinowhile converting a proton to a neutron. Positrons and electrons are beta particles. Scientists have observed beta decay in 97% of all known unstableisotopes. It occurs in nuclei with too many neutrons or too many protons...
Not all atoms are stable. Some isotopes are unstable and will spontaneously decay. There are several types of decay. One is alpha particle decay, wherein an atom releases a helium nucleus.Beta decayinvolves the emission of a proton or an electron. Ingamma-decay, a gamma-ray photon is emitt...
neutrons have no charge. Much how changing the number of electrons does not change the element itself, changing the amount of neutrons keeps relatively the same type of element, but creates an isotope. Isotopes can be unstable, and when they decay, they release energy in the form of radiation...
Nature is so that the same element can exist in the form of two or more variations called isotopes. Isotopes differ from each other by the number of neutrons in the nucleus and by the mass number. Isotopes can be divided into stable and unstable. The first group is characterized by stabili...
What are isotopes? How many neutrons are in the isotope carbon-14? Is carbon an isotope? Which element has the lowest atomic number? Is oxygen-18 an isotope? What is an unstable radioactive isotope? How many protons does the isotope uranium-238 have?
Radioactive isotopes are unstable isotopes that convert to a stable form in a process that can take anywhere from seconds to centuries. Discover how radioactive isotopes are used to track atoms in major macromolecules (a type of biological molecules) and their role in microbiology. Related...