GAMMA RAYS &

COSMIC RAYS
BY: GROUP 7

Oral Presentation
1 Description (nature and properties).

2 Sources (cite example).

3 Beneficial and Harmful effects.

4 Ways to eliminate or minimize harmful effects.

GAMMA RAYS
Description
(nature and properties).
 Gamma Rays
-Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays,
refers to electromagnetic radiation of an
extremely high frequency and therefore
consists of high-energy photons.

-Gamma rays are more penetrating, in matter,

and can damage living cells to a great extent.
Gamma rays are used in medicine
(radiotherapy), industry (sterilization and
disinfection) and the nuclear industry.
 Paul Villard
- a French chemist and physicist, discovered
gamma radiation in 1900, while studying radiation
emitted from radium. Villard's radiation was named
"gamma rays" by Ernest Rutherford in 1903.

Ernest Rutherford
Paul Villard
Beneficial and Harmful
Effects
BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF GAMMA RAYS
-using gamma rays to kill cancer cells when gamma rays can kill any other type of
cell, good or bad.

-Gamma rays kill microbes, and are used to sterilise food so that it will keep fresh
for longer. This is known as "irradiated" food.

-Gamma rays are also used to sterilise medical equipment.

HARMFUL EFFECTS OF GAMMA RAYS
-They can help cure cancer but they can also
cause cancer. Their wavelength is very small,
about the size of an atomic neuclei and that's
the core of an atom.

-Gamma rays cause cell damage and can

cause a variety of cancers.

-They cause mutations in growing tissues, so

unborn babies are especially vulnerable.
Ways to eliminate or mi
nimizes harmful effects
of Gamma Rays
There are three general guidelines for controlling exposure to ionizing radiation:

• minimizing exposure time,

• maximizing distance from the radiation source,
• shielding yourself from the radiation source.
 TIME, DISTANCE AND SHIELDING
Time is an important factor in limiting exposure to the public and to radiological
emergency responders. The amount of radiation exposure increases and
decreases with the time people spend near the source of radiation. The maximum
time to be spent in the radiation environment is defined as the “stay time.”

Stay Time = Exposure Limit/Dose Rate

 TIME, DISTANCE AND SHIELDING

Distance can be used to reduce exposure. The farther away people are from a
radiation source, the less their exposure. Doubling the distance from a point
source of radiation decreases the exposure rate to 1/4 the original exposure rate.
Halving the distance increases the exposure by a factor of four.
 TIME, DISTANCE AND SHIELDING
Shielding - As ionizing radiation passes through matter, the intensity of the
radiation is diminished. Shielding is the placement of an “absorber” between you
and the radiation source. An absorber is a material that reduces radiation from the
radiation source to you. Alpha, beta, or gamma radiation can all be stopped by
different thicknesses of absorbers.

Shielding material can include barrels, boards, vehicles, buildings, gravel,

water, lead or whatever else is immediately available.
 SOURCES OF GAMMA RAYS

They are produced by the hottest and most energetic objects in the universe, such
as neutron stars and pulsars, supernova explosions, and regions around black
holes. On Earth, gamma waves are generated by nuclear explosions, lightning, and
the less dramatic activity of radioactive decay.
COSMIC RAYS
Description
(nature and properties).
 Cosmic Rays
-are highly penetrating radiations entering the earth's atmosphere in all directions
from outer space.

-super-fast subatomic particles that are

raining down on us from space.

-Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 by Victor Hess when he

launched high-accuracy electrometers in balloons.

Victor Hess
-Cosmic rays have high frequency and energy but has a short wavelength.

-Cosmic rays are not really an electromagnetic radiation.

• Have no photons like other electromagnetic radiation

• They travel with velocity less than the speed of light
• Have mass while electromagnetic radiations have no mass
Beneficial and Harmful
Effects
 Benefits of Cosmic Rays

• It has stimulated discoveries related to particle physics, like it was the case
of positronium, first observed in cosmic rays.

• They are same particles that are stable components (part) of the types of
atoms that normally occur on Earth.They are also responsible for 10-15% of
natural background radiation on Earth.
 Harmful Effects of Cosmic Rays

• Health risks from galactic cosmic ray exposure to astronauts include

cancer, central nervous system effects, cataracts, circulatory diseases and
acute
radiation syndromes
Ways to eliminate or mi
nimizes harmful effects
of Gamma Rays
1. Spacecraft shielding

-> Standard spacecraft shielding, integrated

into hull design, is strong protection from
most solar radiation, but defeats this purpose
with high-energy cosmic rays, as it simply
splits this into showers of secondary
particles. This shower of secondary and
fragmented particles may be reduced by the
use of hydrogen or light elements for
shielding.
2. Wearable radiation shielding

-> Apart from passive and active radiation

shielding methods, which focus on protecting
the spacecraft from harmful space radiation,
there has been much interest in designing
personalized radiation protective suits for
astronauts.
3. Drugs and medicine

-> Another line of research is the

development of drugs that enhance the
body's natural capacity to repair damage
caused by radiation.
 COSMIC RAYS
Thomson said many astrophysicists suspect ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are
generated by active galactic nuclei (AGN) in which material is sucked into a
supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy while other material is spewed
away in a beam-like jet known as a blazar. Another possibility is that the
highest-energy cosmic rays come from some exploding stars, called “supernovae,”
that emit gamma-ray bursts.

Lower-energy cosmic rays come from the Sun, other stars, and exploding stars, but
the source or sources of the most energetic cosmic rays has been a decades-long
mystery.

The study was conducted by 125 researchers in the Telescope Array project,
including Thomson and other University of Utah physicists plus dozens of scientists
from the University of Tokyo and other research institutions in Japan, the United
States, South Korea, Russia, and Belgium.
 Thank you
Our Oral Presentation Ends here!