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Radiation Knowledge Is Power - Part 1 Of 5 |
| By
Ray Larsen |
| Mere mention of the word RADIATION conjures up plenty of scary scenarios.
Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Horrible Hanford often come
to mind. Equally scary is how often that word is misused. Definitely
something to be afraid of, considering the challenges our planet is currently
experiencing, especially if you don't know the reality behind it. Radiation is one of several ways the Universe moves energy from one place (the source) to another place (target), your TV antenna, your geiger counter, your body or the entire universe, at the speed of light using photons or electromagnetic waves as the carriers of that energy. The energy source (radiator) can be many things, Ol' Sol (thankfully he's 93 Million miles away), the lightbulb in your flashlight, the X-Ray tube that helped your Doctor diagnose your broken ribs, gamma rays from a nuclear reactor, the "burners" on your electric stove and even your body itself are examples that come to mind. Knowledge really is power when it comes to radiation, so let's go on a little journey through Time and learn more about it. 120 YEARS AGO Come on in, welcome to my little time machine. Yeah, it's bigger on the inside. Trippin' back just 120 years with modern equipment, being careful not to contaminate this time line with our spectrum analyzers and geiger counters, our fancy instruments would detect virtually ZERO manmade radiation. The spectrum analyzer would pick up the random radio frequency (RF) emissions from lightning, some quite distant. It might also pick up the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) which comes to us from all directions. If you were very lucky, you might pick up the signal from one of Nicola Tesla's radio experiments. The visible light and infrared heat of the sun are the primary forms of radiation you would be exposed to. That is, if you're not near a natural deposit of Uranium or other radioactive mineral throwing off Gamma rays as it decays. The geiger counter would pick them up, meaning that you should move somewhere else asap. If you randomly checked many places all over the Earth, you would find that there exists a natural background of gamma radiation. Some comes from the Earth below, the rest from deep space sources, it's always randomly there. DETOUR TO OL'SOL Our star is powered by a hydrogen fusion reaction, kept alight by astronomical temperatures and pressures deep within. The extreme outward pressures from the core exactly counteract the inward force of gravity thus determining the balance point, which is Ol' Sol's current diameter. Decreasing the fusion reaction a bit results in a smaller star, increasing it, a larger star. Fortunately for us, the reaction rate appears to be steady. Near the Sun’s core, the hydrogen fuses to Helium, the waste product which has been accumulating in the Sun's core for around 5 billion years. Vast energy is released. Around 6 billion years in the future, the hydrogen fuel will be used up, the accumulated core of helium will ignite, blowing off the Sun's outer layers. The remaining star will burn helium, accumulating Carbon and Oxygen in it's core. For a star of Ol'Sol's beginning mass, there is not enough heat and pressure to ignite the carbon and oxygen, so once the helium is gone, the remnant will slowly radiate it's remaining thermal energy out to deep space until it becomes an invisible, cold, burnt out C-O cinder. Dangerous to passing spacecraft. Inside a star, heavier elements emit or absorb thermal energy at certain frequencies, these are markers that astronomers can use to ID elements using a fancy prism known as a spectrascope. First generation stars show only hydrogen, because there were no heavier elements in the young Universe when they formed, just lots of hydrogen. Many (8-9) billions of years later, Ol' Sol and his planets formed from the remains of many ancient exploded stars that spent their short lives making lots of heavier elements. That Gold in your jewelry was made in the core of a huge star and spewed out into space when that star exploded 2 to 4 billion years ago. The bulk of the Sun's mass is in the outer shells of mostly hydrogen plasma, very hot stuff, millions of degrees deep down near the fusion layers. Plasma is the fourth state of matter. The energy level is hot enough to cause all the electrons to fly randomly away from the hydrogen atoms they used to be a part of, leaving bare naked protons & electrons randomly zooming around the solar atmosphere. The astronomical numbers of Electrons and Protons in a star should be equal and were equal billions of years ago, but electrons, carriers of the basic negative electric charge are far lighter weight than protons, the positive charge carrier. The light weight of electrons makes for an easier escape from a star's surface. The result of slightly more electrons leaving in the solar wind over a long time, Ol'Sol now has an imbalance of protons, a small net positive electrical charge for the entire star. The excess electrons are mostly hanging around the solar system and do circulate around among the planets, a net of zero for the whole system. Actually, the entire Universe has a net zero charge. Negative infinity plus positive infinity equals zero. A tiny fraction of the electrons and protons that are sent out by Ol'Sol's wind actually intersect Earth's orbit. Moving outward from the Sun's core, the temperature of the plasma drops, down to about 11,000 degrees at the surface. The Sun produces all frequencies from the bottom of the Electromagnetic Spectrum to nearly the top, a broadband source. If all of that energy made it to the surface of planet Earth, nothing could live. It would be hot and dry with little atmosphere and plenty of Ultra Violet light with an occasional burst of X-Rays or worse. If you visited the planet, without a protective suit, the UV, X and Gamma-Rays would kill you fairly quickly. Spacecraft and satellites are exposed to the full blast when outside Earth's magnetic field. Radiation from Ol'Sol killed off many early satellites. Today, various technologies are used to "harden" our satellites. HOW IS IT WE ARE HERE? So, how is it we are here? The Sun's massive, thick atmosphere absorbs the deadly X and Gamma rays produced by the fusion reaction at the core. As they travel upward towards the surface, their energy is converted into atmospheric heat. The surface of a calm Sun radiates all frequencies from the low radio bands up to UV. This radiation is not nuclear, though it's original source was! It is thermal, exactly the same as an old school lightbulb's glowing filament. Solar magnetic storms sometimes pull up sheets of hotter material known as flares. More intense UV plus X-Rays and charged particlesare emitted from the superhot flares, sometimes hitting Earth, when she's in the wrong place at the wrong time. We call this Space Weather amd yes there are Space Weather forecasters, though you won’t see it on TV, unless it’s a major flare. Just so happens, Mother Earth is blessed by a series of defensive shields. The first is our magnetic field. It doesn't help much with the UV and X-Rays, but deflects protons and electrons, charged particles that the Sun spews out, especially during it's magnetic storms. These particles are often mistakenly called radiation, but they are NOT electromagnetic radiation and travel through space at a fraction of lightspeed. It takes them a while to get here, days compared with the 9 minutes for solar radiation. When our magnetic shield fails to stop them, they hit the deck, sparking electrical chaos. In today's world, this is known as EMP, causing blackouts and damaging equipment. Like thousands of lightning bolts all at once. There is a long history of Earth's magnetic field that Earth herself has recorded for us to find and interpret. Science has learned that our magnetic field oscillates, reversing itself every 11,000 years. The mechanism, though not well understood, lies in Earth's molten, circulating nickel-iron core. Earth's field has been decreasing for thousands of years, now down about 35% from it's last peak thousands of years ago. In just the last century, it's dropped another 15%. It will eventually go to zero, hard to say exactly when, perhaps 2,000 years or so, then build back out with the opposite polarity. Your compass will then point in the opposite direction, after the pole shift. This cycle goes back millions of years with all the hard proof anyone could ask for. Mama Earth's atmosphere protects us from most of the Sun's bad forms of radiation, allowing mainly visible light and heat to reach the surface. UV, which can be deadly, like skin cancer deadly, does not penetrate very far under the skin. Most of the Sun's UV is blocked by Earth's ozone layer. Ozone is composed of O3 molecules. Bad news when it's in your polluted big city air, as it can cause breathing issues for some people. In the upper atmosphere, Ozone acts as a UV shield. Fifty years ago, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) from air conditioners and spray cans were making it up there and destroying the ozone layer. That's why we have a UV index included with most weather reports. Once we stopped releasing CFC, the ozone layer has begun to slowly heal itself. So, for now, Earth's many layers of shields seem to be functioning normally. Time to get back back to the time machine. RADIO AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION Let's set our time machine to 1935. America and the world were suffering from the Federal Reserve Bank created great depression. Bernanke admitted it! Our instruments would detect what we know of today as AM (Amplitude Modulated) radio stations. TV was just a cool idea in Mr. Philo T. Farnsworth's mind. Radio was the new hip thing in the 1920-30's with a constantly increasing number of stations coming on the air along with a radio in nearly every home. Meanwhile, the hobby of "Ham Radio" was growing. Motivated people all over the world studied physics and electronics in order to pass FCC tests to obtain a license. They designed and "home-brewed" their own transmitters, receivers and antennas, allowing conversations with likeminded people all over the world, or you could talk with your wife while driving home from work. Broadcasting is basically one way, while Ham is two way. Full article (#5 in this series) about Ham Radio coming soon to rense.com. So if you are interested in learning more, please look for it as you scan down the headline stories. Concerning radio, legendary Sportscaster Red Barber summed it all up, "People who weren't around in the Twenties when radio exploded can't know what it meant, this milestone for mankind. Suddenly, with radio, there was instant human communication. No longer were our homes isolated and lonely and silent. The world came into our homes for the first time. Music came pouring in. Laughter came in. News came in. The world shrank, with radio." I daresay radio helped our nation make it through the Great Depression, as families gathered around their set to hear great musical performances, baseball games or the latest news from around the world. Today, we take our thousands of radio stations and all the workers who produce the programs, for granted. Just imagine how it would cripple your life if radio, TV and internet suddenly disappeared. WORLD WAR II Back in the time machine for another +10 yr jump. The World has been at war for about four years. Both the Axis and Allied powers are scrambling to develop technologies to give them the edge needed to win the war. The powers that be were throwing money, in some cases, lots of money into developing sleeker and faster airframes, jet and rocket engines, radar, two way radios small enough to be carried in a soldier's backpack, better bombs like nuclear weapons, and many more technologies for the military. If we just happened to be near a Manhattan Project site like Los Alamos or the University of Chicago, we would likely pick up some gamma rays on our geiger counter. In 1945, our spectrum analyzer would show many more AM radio stations operating in the 1 MegaHertz band. Depending on where we sat down, we might pick up some two way radio signals, cop car to station or ship to shore. Occasionally, radio stations from across the "pond" would be received. A portion of these far away signals bounces up and down, reflected off the sea and the ionosphere, the rest goes to outer space for the Aliens to pick up. Our early signals are about 100 Light Years out into the galaxy now. Radar stations were being built everywhere, especially up and down the coasts. Chances are, our spectrum analyzer would pick up the pulsed microwave energy from an early radar station. Radar uses a much higher frequency than AM stations. More on Radar in part 2 of this series. One thing would be missing from our 1945 spectrum display, Ham Radio. During the war, the Government put Ham Radio "on-hold" for several reasons. They were concerned about secrets getting out and into the wrong hands. “Loose lips sink ships.” Also, the military needed as many technically savvy soldiers and sailors as they could find. Hams contributed greatly to the war effort, from the research lab, electronics manufacturing, to the radiomen on the battlefield, in the B-52s or on a ship. Many hams found their places during the war, leading to good jobs after they returned home. THE FAB FIFTIES AND BEYOND Back in the time machine for another +10 year jump. Lots of technological change happening everywhere as some of what was discovered during the war made it's way into industry. TV broadcasting is catching on, like radio did in the 20s/30S. The GI Bill's educational benefits provided the electronics industry with lots of skilled and eager scientists and engineers, both civilian and military. The fifties was a time of accelerating improvements to nearly all technologies. Our instruments would pick up more of everything, radio stations, radars, Ham and the powerful new TV stations. Our geiger counter would show more gamma rays, thanks to the fallout from those above ground nuclear bomb tests. From the 1950s to the present, electronics and radio technology kept moving right along, never a dull moment. Transistors were replacing inefficient vacuum tubes, though guitar players still prefer tubes. Tubes can survive EMP. America hasn't made many tubes since the 70s, but Russia and China still make them! Ask any guitar player where the tubes in his amp were made. Old American and British tubes have become a profitable commodity on auction sites like ebay. Big computers were being built. Electronic warfare was getting started. The 60s brought along a new kind of radio, FM (Frequency Modulation). Due to the bandwidth limitations of AM radio transmitters, music lacked the high audio frequencies. The sizzle of cymbals, the highest notes, overtones and harmonics of many instruments didn't come through very well. The new FM radio stations were on a frequency band 100X higher than the AM stations. There was plenty of room in the 88 to 108 MHz band. Each station got a 200 kHz wide slice. By comparison, an AM station is 5 kHz wide. Music sounded so much better when you could hear all of it. Soon, stations were broadcasting in stereo, providing even better sound. Everyone wanted a FM-Stereo receiver as more and more new stations were hitting the airwaves. Our spectrum analyzer would show all these new FM radio signals along with more TV stations pushing ever higher and higher in frequency. Ham radio clubs built repeaters, usually placing them on a tall building or mountain. A repeater is a receiver feeding a transmitter, allowing the use of small, handheld radios to communicate over long distances, even to the other side of the planet. Repeater technology, developed by hams, became the basis for the development of cell phones. Our geiger counter would still be picking up gamma rays from the 50s fallout, plus leakage from nuclear power plants, experiments that went awry and nuclear weapons manufacturing, in some locations, way above the pre-nuclear background we found just a century ago. Thankfully, the US and the USSR agreed to a treaty banning testing of nukes above ground. BACK TO THE FUTURE Setting our time machine back to 2017, we find ourselves immersed in a sea of manmade radiation, which has increased both in intensity and frequency over the last 80 years. Our instruments detect thousands of Electromagnetic signals radiated by things like TV stations, radio stations, cell towers and phones, two way radios, Wi-Fi routers, microwave ovens, the internet of things, smart meters, you name it. This broadband radiation is hitting your body, all the time! Some just passes harmlessly through, while other types are absorbed by tissue with varying health effects. All this stuff is way down at the lower end of the overall frequency spectrum. Visible light occupies a tiny part in the middle, and the worst of it, X and Gamma from sources like Chernobyl and Fukushima, are at the top. Passing like microscopic bullets through your body, they leave a trail of molecular and cellular destruction that your immune system is constantly working to clean up. DEEP SPACE RADIATION Ol'Sol and man-made aren't the only sources of radiation received by planet Earth. We also have many deep space sources to consider. Black holes, neutron stars, magnetars and exploding stars (novas and supernovas) are major sources of X and Gamma Rays from deep space. Black hole collisions between stars or other black holes are the highest energy sources yet found. Fortunately for us, those high energy sources are very far away and to their radiation, our atmosphere is like 20 feet of lead, absorbing most of this stuff, so very little makes it down to the surface. Because of this absorption, X and Gamma Ray astronomy must be done using satellites way above the atmosphere. Then, we have the weak, harmless, Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR). It was discovered by 2 astronomers working with microwave receivers, the beginnings of Radio Astronomy. Dr. Penzias and Dr. Wilson won a Nobel prize for their discovery. To them, it was a bothersome noise they couldn't account for, but their research finally revealed the source, the entire Universe! At one point, they thought it could be due to pigeon droppings inside their antenna! The CBR comes to us from all directions at 160 GHz. Just so happens, around the same time that the CBR was being discovered, theoretical physicists were predicting it using only mathematics. The CBR is generally regarded as proof of the big bang theory, dark matter and the Doppler effect. A case where Physics theory and observation agree quite closely. Just imagine how those scientists must have felt when they found out about each other's work! BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE The second article in this series of 5, is a guided tour of the frequency spectrum from radio up to visible light. The 3rd article will cover the spectrum above visible light, UV, the ionizing radiation, like X and Gamma Rays. Along with those, we'll also have a look at particles, mainly electrons, protons and neutrons. The fourth article will cover what types of radiation you should be concerned about and what you can do about it. The last article of the series will be all about the amazing world of ham radio. Ray Larsen is a Citizen Scientist, Musician and Nuclear Veteran based in Denver Colorado. Please direct questions to: greenchillmuse@gmail.com Exclusively on Rense.com |