What is radioactivity?

• Most of the elements you know from the periodic table are in their “stable” form.
• But most elements also have “unstable” forms.
• The unstable forms are constantly trying to return to a more stable form by discharging particles and energy from inside themselves.
• These discharges are called “radiation” which you will try to detect in this remote experiment.
• Radiation comes in three different forms that we call “alpha”, “beta” and “gamma” radiation.

These three different kinds of radiation have very different penetrating power which we hope you observed in the FAR Labs turntable experiment. The animation below gives you a chance to see the penetrating power for each form of radioactivity.

What is Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Radiation?