X-RAYS!!

By DANIEL DOSSMAN
DANIEL FELIPE MORENO
JUAN PABLO RAMIREZ

DISCOVERER

X-rays have a
wavelength in the
range of 0.01 to 10
nanometers,
corresponding to
frequencies in the
range 30 petahertz to
30 exahertz (3 1016
hz to 3 1019 hz) and
energies in the range
120 ev to 120 kev.

As the wavelengths of light decreases, they

increase in energy. X-rays have smaller
wavelengths and therefore higher energy
than ultraviolet waves. We usually talk
about X-rays in terms of their energy rather
than wavelength. This is partially because
X-rays have very small wavelengths. It is
also because X-ray light tends to act more
like a particle than a wave.

X-ray detectors collect

actual photons of X-ray
light - which is very
different from the radio
telescopes that have
large dishes designed
to focus radio waves!
X-rays were first
observed and
documented in 1895 by
Wilhelm Conrad
Roentgen, a German
scientist who found
them quite by accident
when experimenting
with vacuum tubes.

What would it be like to

see X-rays? Well, we
wouldn't be able to see
through people's
clothes, no matter what
the ads for X-ray
glasses tell us! If we
could see X-rays, we
could see things that
either emit X-rays or
halt their transmission.
Our eyes would be like
the X-ray film used in
hospitals or dentist's
offices.

DETECTORS

Proportional counters are X-Ray detectors

commonly used in recent missions. Theyre
fluorescent light tubes, in which you let
X-ray photons hit and then you measure the
resulting electric charge.
Silicon CDDS (charge-coupled devices, similar
to the ccds in video cameras) consist of
silicon (the standard computer chip material)
with impurities to create sites where
conductivity is different.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/xrays.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/how_l1/xray_
detectors.html