Six atoms? How do we know that hasn't just drifted from all of those leaking soviet navy reactors scuttled in the arctic? Those were breeders with heavy neutron production.
@@hawkdsl I've known a very few male humans who completely left their childhood in the dust. They are very grumpy, never satisfied with life, and often have high blood pressure and/or multiple heart attacks.
60 half-lifes? Everyone knows there can only be two Half-Lifes, and after that, what's left just disappears instantaneously in a process called newellisation.
I was aware the heavy elements came out of supernovae, but it never occurred to me that there was a limit to what they could produce. Today I learned that the heaviest elements require a black hole to be formed by merging neutron stars... just goes to show you just how common in the universe something we didn't even have confirmation of existing until about 50 years ago is.
The supposed mechanism doesn't seem to be adequate for the abundance of heavy elements that exist: A star explodes and stuff is strewn in all directions. Then we find substantial, but localized iron deposits on one planet far, far away from the stars that exploded. In fact, we have a planetary core that is rich in iron. Sure, supernovae can create heavy elements, but there seems to be too much space for that to be the only plausible source of what we find.
I'm a geologist. I'm also embarrassed to say that I've never thought of radioactive rock as being "spicy". Going forward, I plan to fully rectify this discrepancy. Thanks again, Scott!
Your video sent me on a quick yet deep dig into the contents of interstellar mediums to answer a question and came back to your video with full comprehension - your videos are an endless source of thought provoking curiosity and I must thank you for that! Keep up the good work! Fly safe!
Pu244: Dad? SNR: No, but I knew your father. He was a Neutron Star and he met this little Black Hole from another spiral arm. Pu244: Were they happy together? SNR: It all started quite innocently but ended violently.
@@McSlobo Elements in the island of "stability" have half lives on the order of months to years; if they were produced in supernova or neutron star mergers or some other process there would be no chance of finding any today.
Sometimes I find it hard with my high school chemistry and physics classes to keep with Scott. But,,,I still enjoy listening and picking up new information.
"You can't create Plutonium 244 by accident". As an avid watcher of the Plainly Difficult channel i can attest to people being very creative when it comes to creating accidents involving nuclear materials.
Is Pu 244 even dangerous though? With those low half-lifes I'm thinking it is about as dangerous as any particular rock. not that Pu-244 would arrive in an asteroid either. I would imagine it would be more like space dust that had been blasted by neutron radiation.
@@jannikheidemann3805 plutonium 244 cant go critical mass and nuclear chain reaction man, it most stable one. So the supernova blow those iron 60 and 244plutonium to earth like all other heavy element. 80millions halflife so maybe the Chixulub asteroid that wipe out the Dino bring the Plutonium 244 and iron 60 with it :))
Weirdly, you're the second person I've heard to mysteriously reference that quote without explaining its origin in the last few weeks. At least I feel clever now knowing what it's from the second time around. lol
@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Scott was making a joke by calling them ‘spicy rocks’, my comment was totally appropriate and comments don’t ‘break’ into anything.
Neutron star collisions gets my vote too. With the latest study, that they don't shrink over time, and their astrophysical jets aren't 180 degrees... There is a lot there we don't know.
There have been natural nuclear reactors formed in the past (at Oklo, in West Africa...that's the only known site, but there could've been others that are unknown at present), where geological contingency created a situation in which U-235 could undergo a self-sustaining fission reaction (back then, U-235 made up over 3% of the atoms of all naturally-occuring uranium...this is basically exactly the enrichment level that is used at present in most nuclear reactors around the world). Groundwater served as the moderator there, and the slowed-down neutrons operated just like they do in real nuclear reactors, being captured by U-238, and turning into Pu-239. *_Scientists estimate that over 2 TONS of plutonium were generated there over the lifetime of 16 separate reactor phases._* Obviously, none of that plutonium remains today, since the half-life of Pu-239 is something like 24,000 years, and the last reactor at Oklo shut down 1.7 BILLION years ago (71,000 half-lives...it would take less than 100 half-lives to reduce 2 tons of Pu-239 to a single atom thereof), but because this reactor has been proven to exist, and operated under the constraints of the laws of physics, *_we know for a fact that plutonium is a naturally-occuring element._* And it's quite likely that there are other elements that were previously thought to only exist via human-made technology, that have been generated without human input. However, this does lead me to a somewhat deep question. *_Humans...are natural._* We came to exist via natural processes, and therefore, whatever we do is also natural. If a clever...trilobite or whatever found a lump of pitchblende at the bottom of the ocean, and moved it so that it was near other pitchblende, and a chain reaction commenced, it would be "natural." So why, when a bunch of clever humans who are intent on blowing Germans to smithereens (having known some Germans, I sympathize with this sentiment) do the same thing, we call it artificial?
Now do tell! Why the hell couldn't MY chemistry teacher be this entertaining? Thank you Scott! Btw. You COULD have, say, a 'random Wednesday' segment where you cover such random off-the-main-track' items... Either way - thank you for being you.
Thanks for this really cool video! In addition to the humor (spicy rocks and garden variety supernovas, heh) it's a very entertaining and clear discussion of a scientific paper that teaches us something new. That kind of intelligent discussion is always rare on UA-cam and much appreciated.
This is like listening to heavy metal music. I have no idea what I am listening too or if I even like it, but it sounds fascinating and even compelling, and so I keep listening. What a great way to get an education.
That's 10 minutes & 40 seconds where I went into a trance and then when Scott said "Fly Safe." I came back to reality, listened to the outro and thought "What was that all about?" Physics was not my strongest subject at school.
Great video, i didnt think it was possible to check back so far in time ! Could this element time mapping be used to check for signs of the moon forming, or planet X passing ?
Yet another video on a topic that I couldn't have told you a thing about before, yet the whole thing made sense and I now understand. Fantastic presentation/explanations as always! (And I too am going to borrow the term "spicy rocks")
This is fantastic. When I took geochem I wondered if Pu 244 made by the rapid process could be detected on earth still! Sounds like it's not primordial though.
Thanks for existing and for sharing your knowledge.. Man, you rock! does anyone know the name of this outromusic? I found it even cooler than Fatality but couldn't find the name anywhere...
Also the Aluminum isotopes with half lives of 70k-700k years that have also been found. Those are also 'nova" level energies needed to create them but would decay long before they reached us unless the one variable that's not being discussed is our own sun having a long period recurring micro-nova phase. Our star is no different but is always excluded from consideration for some reason.
@@scottmanley The context in my original comment is basically from the more recent depositions that find these isotopes along with micro spheres in black mat layers of sediment coinciding with mass extinction events and magnetic excursions that are less than 100k years ago. My thinking is they all go hand in hand if the sun had a rather angry moment or two.
Fast reactors can happily burn plutonium and the longer lived actinides. There is no need for expensive (and risky) molten metal coolants. We already have simple intrinsically safe designs waiting to go. The delay is entirely down to the glacial pace of regulatory oversight.
Dude. Are you even ALLOWED to tell us what you used to do for a living? Anyway, I wish my engineering professors in the past were even 1/100th as fun to listen to as you. Spicy rocks. I love it.
Stellar rebounding during a Supernova event is one of the most violent moments of energetic release in nature. Save for the merger of 2 Neutron Stars. That should hold the top spot as the most energetic process in the universe.
Never figured that there could be non-radioactive (or extremely low radiation) plutonium.. edit: I guess that's where the idea of the stable island of very heavy isotopes, of normally unstable elements, comes from?
@@ReneSchickbauer it has been a while since my highschool physics.. But is it wrong to equate a long halflife (and as far as I remember, thus stability) with lower radiation?
Nah yea "low radiation" plutonium is still radioactive. It isn't entirely wrong to equate long half life with lower levels of radiation but the type of radiation (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron emission) the material density, transparency and overall quantity matters too. The idea of the Island of stability comes from the nuclear shell model and magic numbers (belive it or not thats what they called). Again this isn't entirely a new discovery I mean look up Przybylski's Star, that contains a load of unusual stuff and even plutonium amongs them.
A 60 Ma half life element should be relatively safe to handle. Unfortunately for the would be plutonium user the element is also a hideously toxic heavy metal too.
Is there a way to speed up an elements decay rate without subjecting it to a reactor and making it hot? I had read that Palladium can do this but no explanation of how this is done.
Most of it, yes. But a half-life is not a firm expiration date, it's more like a best-before date. There was evidently so much Pu-244 being flung our way that some of it remained "fresh" on the way over.
You finally went there at the end. Today, when I hear super heavy element, I think kilonova. There's some logic behind the concept that breaking up what is basically a kilometer-sized nucleus generates large nuclei. In a way, after you have smashed the gravitation that binds the whole thing together you end up with giant, hyper radioactive chunks.
@0m56, if a Beta ray is produced ( high energy /speed electron), a neutron "decays" into a proton? since a neutron is proton and a electron combined and having no charge. an element with a uneven count of neutrons is unstable.
Fascinating! We have "spicy rocks" here in Cornwall, whilst not as spicy as those that you discuss in this video, but our background radiation is apparently a little higher than some other places, and we have radon issues too. I shall use the term "spicy rocks" in future. Thank you Scott.
Got a question: If there’s such a tiny tiny trace amount of Pu 244, how does one find those random atoms in a 4” diameter x 10’ core? We’re they looking for it specifically? Did they stumble upon it? Or were they just cataloging everything?
Looking at the neutron star animation, I'm now curious to know what the maximum fatal distance from such an event would be from gravitational energy alone. You would need a high enough frequency to produce a significant tidal force --- different parts of your body being pulled in different directions --- and enough amplitude to actually tear things apart. At low frequencies it would rip you limb from limb, but at high enough frequencies you'd end up with individual water molecules being broken. Somewhere inbetween you'd have proteins being denatured because they would be being stretched out of shape; this would need as much amplitude. I wonder if anyone's actually tried to calculate this...
Excellent walk-through of the difficulties one encounters when one is making heavy elements. And the trick is one needs lots of really high energy neutrons. I know I'll be so much more successful now!
Looks like the Periodic Table at 6:52 needs an update, then. Pretty much any sort-of-stable isotope ought to be found in those sediments, if you look hard enough.
Scott turns the tables on us, talking about tiny stuff to the scale of 7g in the entire Earth and samples containing perhaps 10 atoms of interest. Still staggering!
From this point forward, I will be referring to radioactive materials as "Spicy Rocks."
I love that
Japan couldn't handle the spicy
Angry rocks
@@pedrolmlkzk it was too hot for them!!😜
As they say, the spice must flow
I love how finding 6 atoms in a bunch of seabed dirt can tell is so much about what can be produced by a supernova and neutron stars.
_J. Seabed Dirt Sci._ would fill many shelves in a library.
Indeed, quite mind blowing
It's just how sure they are.
Six atoms? How do we know that hasn't just drifted from all of those leaking soviet navy reactors scuttled in the arctic? Those were breeders with heavy neutron production.
+ depth information for time correlation
He who controls the spicy rocks, controls the universe
+1 for _Dune_ reference.
At least this crappy little marble
Tom Brady vibez
@@jpdemer5 ya but spice is psychedelic worm poop
The Sleeper MUST AWAKEN!
"Spicy rock" is probably my favourite way to describe a radioactive element now.
T-shirt please
sad radon noises
It's like sprite
Came to make this comment lol
@@CarFreeSegnitz Spicy gas
"Unconstrained by weak processes, relatively garden variety processes like supernovae". ha!
I always hate it when my rose bushes get messed up by spontaneous supernovae of the garden variety.
I was about to make this comment but you beat me to it lol. It's the ridiculous-sounding things that are actually true that are the funniest.
Yep, the star went through a rapid unscheduled disassembly... Just think, that could happen here. 😶
@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Every 12,000 years, actually.
I don’t know who’s garden they are referring to but I don’t want to around it, it sort of messes up the neighborhood.
0:40 "If you have any amount of uranium sitting around," he says, while his gaze constantly shifts to something off-camera.
Underrated
"when I was a boy" he says. As he sits in front of a plethora of toys, models, figures, Lego etc, etc. Excellent Scott!
Those aren't "toys," they are "highly accurate, scale replica scientific models"
@@ianoxenham4219 "re-enactment props"
Males never grow up. It is known.
@@hawkdsl I've known a very few male humans who completely left their childhood in the dust. They are very grumpy, never satisfied with life, and often have high blood pressure and/or multiple heart attacks.
@@ianoxenham4219 I stand corrected sir. Thank you.
"If you have uranium sitting around"
"Finally some recognition!"
Uranium is relatively common in igneous rocks, and much more concentrated than gold.
You're looking particularly radiant today my pet!
maybe look at giving your pet rock a home, its not exactly healthy to have raw uranium ore either
I have a gram of uranium on my desk right now, i hink evryfone shold havge somge urbfhdssfdsag
@@AsbestosMuffins unless you put it in your drink or breath it as microparticles Uranium is actually just another rock
60 half-lifes? Everyone knows there can only be two Half-Lifes, and after that, what's left just disappears instantaneously in a process called newellisation.
I thought Newellisation related to the mutation of pencils?
@@fredbloggs5902 joking about gabe newells name
@@walkerrodgers557 and I was joking about Edgar Newell in 1903...
...Damn, I forget what short lives you humans have ☹️
you can have multiple half-lives. it's a simple google search
@@trippjones14 its a joke about valves game series half life. Steam manages to only make 2 games in a series before development stops.
I was aware the heavy elements came out of supernovae, but it never occurred to me that there was a limit to what they could produce. Today I learned that the heaviest elements require a black hole to be formed by merging neutron stars... just goes to show you just how common in the universe something we didn't even have confirmation of existing until about 50 years ago is.
Note also the 'relativistic speeds' part. If you get a jet of neutrons really they could do the job anywhere.
The supposed mechanism doesn't seem to be adequate for the abundance of heavy elements that exist: A star explodes and stuff is strewn in all directions. Then we find substantial, but localized iron deposits on one planet far, far away from the stars that exploded. In fact, we have a planetary core that is rich in iron. Sure, supernovae can create heavy elements, but there seems to be too much space for that to be the only plausible source of what we find.
"See this core sample here? It has about 6 Plutoniums 244"
"6 grams?!"
"No, _ individual atoms"_
Crazy stuff
You! Turn out those pockets!
Atoms! Six of them!
yeah the mtod they used must have an insane sensitivity to pick it up.... 6 among trillions
The secret is to get beret guy to work for your lab.
Nice to finally get a concise, straightforward explanation of the various ways the heavier elements might be produced in one place.
I'm a geologist. I'm also embarrassed to say that I've never thought of radioactive rock as being "spicy". Going forward, I plan to fully rectify this discrepancy. Thanks again, Scott!
Your video sent me on a quick yet deep dig into the contents of interstellar mediums to answer a question and came back to your video with full comprehension - your videos are an endless source of thought provoking curiosity and I must thank you for that! Keep up the good work! Fly safe!
Scott Manley is the amazingly interesting science teacher I never had in high school.
Thanks for filling that childhood void Scott!
Pu244: Dad?
SNR: No, but I knew your father. He was a Neutron Star and he met this little Black Hole from another spiral arm.
Pu244: Were they happy together?
SNR: It all started quite innocently but ended violently.
They had a very stable relationship for a long time. Their lives orbited around one another. Until the end... He got too close and she ate him.
This.
Scot's videos make me feel smart right up to the bit where they end and I return to my thick self.
Natural plutonium ?
Well time to update the wikis and Mendeleïev tables
Actually this is part of the reason uranium ore to be more radioactive than the purified metal :)
I'm wondering why they didn't seek for elements from the island of stability.
@@McSlobo Elements in the island of "stability" have half lives on the order of months to years; if they were produced in supernova or neutron star mergers or some other process there would be no chance of finding any today.
Naturally-occurring plutonium has been known about for a long time.
It isn't excatly a new thing, have you heard about the Przybylski's Star ?
I love how Scott just ends the video. Very to the point and thats why he's the best!!
Sometimes I find it hard with my high school chemistry and physics classes to keep with Scott. But,,,I still enjoy listening and picking up new information.
"We are star stuff.." ~ Carl Sagan
"There are certain gods of the cosmos, commonly known as stars.." ~ Aleister Crowley
"You can't create Plutonium 244 by accident". As an avid watcher of the Plainly Difficult channel i can attest to people being very creative when it comes to creating accidents involving nuclear materials.
I feel so much better knowing that a plutonium meteorite could hit our atmosphere and shower us with Pu 244.
😳😂😂😂
Nah, Marvin just missed with his space modulator ray.
It can't be bigger than the critical mass. Otherwise it would be destroyed by a nuclear chain reaction and wouldn't hit us as a rock.
Is Pu 244 even dangerous though? With those low half-lifes I'm thinking it is about as dangerous as any particular rock. not that Pu-244 would arrive in an asteroid either. I would imagine it would be more like space dust that had been blasted by neutron radiation.
@@jannikheidemann3805 plutonium 244 cant go critical mass and nuclear chain reaction man, it most stable one. So the supernova blow those iron 60 and 244plutonium to earth like all other heavy element. 80millions halflife so maybe the Chixulub asteroid that wipe out the Dino bring the Plutonium 244 and iron 60 with it :))
“They’re minerals, Marie, minerals”..
Weirdly, you're the second person I've heard to mysteriously reference that quote without explaining its origin in the last few weeks. At least I feel clever now knowing what it's from the second time around. lol
This is a bad joke. It's trying to break into a conversation it has no relationship to.
*spicy* minerals
@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Scott was making a joke by calling them ‘spicy rocks’, my comment was totally appropriate and comments don’t ‘break’ into anything.
@@fredbloggs5902 I think he wasn't actually criticizing it, he was referencing Breaking Bad by hiding the words within his two sentences. =)
Hey Scott can you make a video about NASA's next Mars orbiter (NeMO) formerly known as Mars 2022 orbiter?
Neutron star collisions gets my vote too.
With the latest study, that they don't shrink over time, and their astrophysical jets aren't 180 degrees... There is a lot there we don't know.
u mean astrophysical jets?
@@ganondalf8090 Yes, thanks. "Jests" was courtesy of autocorrect.
(Which it almost always isn't, for science terms.)
+1 “garden variety processes for supernova” LOL
I have been watching your channel for maybe 6 or 7 years, your videos are very informative and fun to watch, fly safe Scott 🤘
Strange. I was up at 4 a.m. unable to sleep reading the plutonium Wikipedia page yesterday. Great timing Scott!
Thanks scott. Appriciate the content and taking appart thouse papers and present it very good. It's exciting.
Spicy rocks. Love it. Keep up the videos man. Extremely informative, and love the way that you present them.
There have been natural nuclear reactors formed in the past (at Oklo, in West Africa...that's the only known site, but there could've been others that are unknown at present), where geological contingency created a situation in which U-235 could undergo a self-sustaining fission reaction (back then, U-235 made up over 3% of the atoms of all naturally-occuring uranium...this is basically exactly the enrichment level that is used at present in most nuclear reactors around the world). Groundwater served as the moderator there, and the slowed-down neutrons operated just like they do in real nuclear reactors, being captured by U-238, and turning into Pu-239. *_Scientists estimate that over 2 TONS of plutonium were generated there over the lifetime of 16 separate reactor phases._*
Obviously, none of that plutonium remains today, since the half-life of Pu-239 is something like 24,000 years, and the last reactor at Oklo shut down 1.7 BILLION years ago (71,000 half-lives...it would take less than 100 half-lives to reduce 2 tons of Pu-239 to a single atom thereof), but because this reactor has been proven to exist, and operated under the constraints of the laws of physics, *_we know for a fact that plutonium is a naturally-occuring element._* And it's quite likely that there are other elements that were previously thought to only exist via human-made technology, that have been generated without human input.
However, this does lead me to a somewhat deep question. *_Humans...are natural._* We came to exist via natural processes, and therefore, whatever we do is also natural. If a clever...trilobite or whatever found a lump of pitchblende at the bottom of the ocean, and moved it so that it was near other pitchblende, and a chain reaction commenced, it would be "natural." So why, when a bunch of clever humans who are intent on blowing Germans to smithereens (having known some Germans, I sympathize with this sentiment) do the same thing, we call it artificial?
Now do tell! Why the hell couldn't MY chemistry teacher be this entertaining? Thank you Scott! Btw. You COULD have, say, a 'random Wednesday' segment where you cover such random off-the-main-track' items...
Either way - thank you for being you.
Everyone knows plutonium comes from fragments of pluto that came to earth
_"Neutron star mergers are incredibly violent events."_
Sort of like the ultimate hostile takeover...😊
Thanks for this really cool video! In addition to the humor (spicy rocks and garden variety supernovas, heh) it's a very entertaining and clear discussion of a scientific paper that teaches us something new. That kind of intelligent discussion is always rare on UA-cam and much appreciated.
Fly safe should have been changed to Fuse Safe for this episode.
Or perhaps Fuse Stable...
Cool video. I did read this article few days ago, and I tough it would be great material for a video.
I believe Isaac Asimov speculated about this back in the 50s (he wrote fact as well as sci-fi).
This is like listening to heavy metal music. I have no idea what I am listening too or if I even like it, but it sounds fascinating and even compelling, and so I keep listening. What a great way to get an education.
Heh... Heavy metal
Upvoting for "fly safe!". I miss that on shorts ...
Listening to this makes me feel smart
Thanks for answering the F9 shockwave question so quickly.
That's 10 minutes & 40 seconds where I went into a trance and then when Scott said "Fly Safe." I came back to reality, listened to the outro and thought "What was that all about?"
Physics was not my strongest subject at school.
Great video, i didnt think it was possible to check back so far in time ! Could this element time mapping be used to check for signs of the moon forming, or planet X passing ?
Yet another video on a topic that I couldn't have told you a thing about before, yet the whole thing made sense and I now understand. Fantastic presentation/explanations as always!
(And I too am going to borrow the term "spicy rocks")
Love all your videos, so keep up the good work... But where'd you get that shirt from? Software engineer would love to have one 😁
Great topic for this video! I cant wait for the next Q&A Vid
This stuff is so cool to me. Love how much we can learn about ourselves and the universe around us from something so small.
In space no one can hear your neutrons scream...
i wonder why some elements in the periodic table of elements shown in the vid are missing ...such as the mentioned Pu (94)
This is fantastic. When I took geochem I wondered if Pu 244 made by the rapid process could be detected on earth still! Sounds like it's not primordial though.
Thanks for existing and for sharing your knowledge.. Man, you rock!
does anyone know the name of this outromusic? I found it even cooler than Fatality but couldn't find the name anywhere...
A scientific quicky with Scott! Keep up the good work
Also the Aluminum isotopes with half lives of 70k-700k years that have also been found. Those are also 'nova" level energies needed to create them but would decay long before they reached us unless the one variable that's not being discussed is our own sun having a long period recurring micro-nova phase. Our star is no different but is always excluded from consideration for some reason.
It’s not excluded, here’s a paper from 2020 discussing it: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab9a38
Excellent, Thank you! great videos btw : )
@@scottmanley The context in my original comment is basically from the more recent depositions that find these isotopes along with micro spheres in black mat layers of sediment coinciding with mass extinction events and magnetic excursions that are less than 100k years ago. My thinking is they all go hand in hand if the sun had a rather angry moment or two.
Brilliant
Really enjoyed this
THankyou
Stuart in Ireland
I had read the paper before I watched the video. I congratulate you on a very good and faithful rendering of is contents in a very accessible way! 👍
Really interesting! I love you Scott!
Fast reactors can happily burn plutonium and the longer lived actinides. There is no need for expensive (and risky) molten metal coolants. We already have simple intrinsically safe designs waiting to go. The delay is entirely down to the glacial pace of regulatory oversight.
Mr Manley's breadth of knowledge always amazes me! I should be used to it by now ha!! Many thanks for another superb presentation
Where is the chart starting at 8:52 from? I want a poster sized version!
Manley has a 24 minute video on radioactive rocks and space booms? Yes please.
Use proper scientific language, please. SPICY rocks!
I guess with that half life we can make an estimate of how far away the [neutron star merger or other process] was from the earth.
'Spicy rocks', pure gold.
Dude. Are you even ALLOWED to tell us what you used to do for a living?
Anyway, I wish my engineering professors in the past were even 1/100th as fun to listen to as you. Spicy rocks. I love it.
Stellar rebounding during a Supernova event is one of the most violent moments of energetic release in nature. Save for the merger of 2 Neutron Stars. That should hold the top spot as the most energetic process in the universe.
Nice departure from 'the norm'. Thank you.
Enjoyed!! Very cool!
Spicy rocks!
Spicy does Rock!!!
Never figured that there could be non-radioactive (or extremely low radiation) plutonium..
edit: I guess that's where the idea of the stable island of very heavy isotopes, of normally unstable elements, comes from?
"Extremely low radiation plutonium" probably means you'll die within months instead of hours when playing around with a sizeable chunk of that stuff.
@@ReneSchickbauer it has been a while since my highschool physics.. But is it wrong to equate a long halflife (and as far as I remember, thus stability) with lower radiation?
Nah yea "low radiation" plutonium is still radioactive. It isn't entirely wrong to equate long half life with lower levels of radiation but the type of radiation (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron emission) the material density, transparency and overall quantity matters too. The idea of the Island of stability comes from the nuclear shell model and magic numbers (belive it or not thats what they called).
Again this isn't entirely a new discovery I mean look up Przybylski's Star, that contains a load of unusual stuff and even plutonium amongs them.
A 60 Ma half life element should be relatively safe to handle. Unfortunately for the would be plutonium user the element is also a hideously toxic heavy metal too.
In light of this.
I will be avenging pluto's loss in planetary science and starting a crusade against the taxenomy of Helium as a natural element.
I'm really interested in that blackhole simulation, youtube doesn't have the bitrate to compensate for how detailed it looks. I'd love a link to that
Is there a way to speed up an elements decay rate without subjecting it to a reactor and making it hot? I had read that Palladium can do this but no explanation of how this is done.
This episode was pretty good 👍
Wouldn't any of that "spicy" material have decayed by the time it could reach Earth?
Most of it, yes. But a half-life is not a firm expiration date, it's more like a best-before date. There was evidently so much Pu-244 being flung our way that some of it remained "fresh" on the way over.
Always wondered about this topic. So much info, credibly delivered. Thank you! I am going to buy you a beer.
60 half lives!!! Wow we are still waiting for Half Life 3!!! Looking at you Valve.
Henceforth, radioactive materials shall be known as "Spicy Rocks".
Excellent explanation!
Love the new intro
I am dying to see a nearby supernova in my lifetime so bad
And here on the chart showing possible formation processes Byrliium and Boron are stuck with only one way of forming.
You finally went there at the end. Today, when I hear super heavy element, I think kilonova. There's some logic behind the concept that breaking up what is basically a kilometer-sized nucleus generates large nuclei.
In a way, after you have smashed the gravitation that binds the whole thing together you end up with giant, hyper radioactive chunks.
Excellent presentation.
Is anyone else actually smart enough to understand Scott? I watch all his videos, but only understand about 10% of them if I’m lucky.
@0m56, if a Beta ray is produced ( high energy /speed electron), a neutron "decays" into a proton? since a neutron is proton and a electron combined and having no charge. an element with a uneven count of neutrons is unstable.
I love your description “spicy rock” haha
Everyone talking about "Spicy Rocks" but that's old slang, I'm here to show love for stars reaching a "Very Violent Retirement Age"
Fascinating!
We have "spicy rocks" here in Cornwall, whilst not as spicy as those that you discuss in this video, but our background radiation is apparently a little higher than some other places, and we have radon issues too.
I shall use the term "spicy rocks" in future.
Thank you Scott.
Got a question: If there’s such a tiny tiny trace amount of Pu 244, how does one find those random atoms in a 4” diameter x 10’ core?
We’re they looking for it specifically? Did they stumble upon it? Or were they just cataloging everything?
Looking at the neutron star animation, I'm now curious to know what the maximum fatal distance from such an event would be from gravitational energy alone. You would need a high enough frequency to produce a significant tidal force --- different parts of your body being pulled in different directions --- and enough amplitude to actually tear things apart. At low frequencies it would rip you limb from limb, but at high enough frequencies you'd end up with individual water molecules being broken. Somewhere inbetween you'd have proteins being denatured because they would be being stretched out of shape; this would need as much amplitude. I wonder if anyone's actually tried to calculate this...
Excellent walk-through of the difficulties one encounters when one is making heavy elements. And the trick is one needs lots of really high energy neutrons. I know I'll be so much more successful now!
Looks like the Periodic Table at 6:52 needs an update, then. Pretty much any sort-of-stable isotope ought to be found in those sediments, if you look hard enough.
Wow! 6:48 Periodic Table by how elements formed.
Amazing what humans have been able to work out.
Spicy rocks is the scientific term. Lol
Don't poke them with a screwdriver or you're gonna have a bad last couple days alive.
I looked for Doctor Waldo everywhere in that paper and couldn't find him.
I love stuff like this! I may never get my hands on any plutonium, but I still like learning!
Wonderful video! This is really fascinating ... like when I read about the natural nuclear reactor. Everything we know comes from nature.
That muscle memory of holding spicy rocks in the palm of your hand…
Scott turns the tables on us, talking about tiny stuff to the scale of 7g in the entire Earth and samples containing perhaps 10 atoms of interest. Still staggering!