What causes the blue glow you see when something highly radioactive is under water?
356811
Cherenkov radiation is Electromagnetic (non-ionising) radiation emitted when a charged particle (e.g. an Electron ) passes through a medium (e.g. water) at a speed greater than that of light in the medium. This can be seen as the characteristic "blue glow" where sources of large activity (e.g. irradiator sources or spent nuclear fuel) are stored under water.\n\nI too have recollections that Cherenkov radiation is primarily asscoiated with Caesium, but I haven't managed to find any confirmation of this.
866818
Many minerals glow or fluoresce under different sorts of light. \n\nCertain types of calcite will glow under ultraviolet light. \nYou need to do a google search on FLUORESCENT MINERALS and all will then be revealed. \n\nHope this helps.
351628
They glow if they contain fluoresent substance(s) such as phosphorus compounds.
131583
i would think that the radiation from the freqs listed above should all cause excite the water molecules in the same way but to differing extents. that's a very good question; i think i'll research it.
988615
atoms splitting apart by fission and protons clinging to the control rods in the reactor. there is steam produced also. and if you REALLY wanna see physical changes, jump in!
828967
A piece of uranium or plutonium is put in water, and then the water begins to boil releasing a large ammount of of energy. That energy is collected. What`s left over from this reaction is known as nuclear waste.
554348
goldwing doesn't know what he's taking about... Heavy water, which is distiguished by the presence of H-2, or Deuterium, is _not_ radioactive.  It is a stable isotope that does exist naturally (.015% from the table of nuclides), stable nuclei don't emit radioactive particles, radioactive particles are emitted as a means for an unstable nuclei to return to a stable form. The reason it is licensed is because heavy water can harm biogical systems, but not because of radiocativity, but rather because biological systems are quite sensitive to the solvent properties of water (which change when deuterium is substituted for natural hydrogen), given a human would have to drink pure heavy water for over two weeks before he/she became seriously ill, but it's a risk nonetheless.  Another reason that it is licensed for production is because a facility capable of seperating an isotope like H2 from natural hydrogen could potentially seperate another fissile isotope (U-235) from natural Uranium...
932941
Radiation from thousands of nuclear bomb tests.  If you wait until night the green ones will glow.  Or maybe they're just different colors like black people and white people.
1082336
its the way the light reflects of the bits of water
29645
It probably is evaporating from the top. The bubbles on bottom are just more visible.
285280
convection, radiation due to uranium levels (nuclear)
393218
They emit radiation before being burnt, too.  They're made with a thorium alloy, and thorium is a weak alpha ray emitter similar to uranium.  I'm not sure if newer ones are made this way, but they were made with thorium for decades.
429574
gas emitting visible light as a result of being heated
707257
There are several theories:\n\n1. Blue wavelengths are absorbed the least by the deep ocean water and are scattered and reflected back to the observer’s eye \n\n2. Particles in the water may help to reflect blue light \n\n3. The ocean reflects the blue sky
885930
Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel while working on phosphorescent materials. These materials glow in the dark after exposure to light, and he thought that the glow produced in cathode ray tubes by X-rays might somehow be connected with phosphorescence. So he tried wrapping a photographic plate in black paper and placing various phosphorescent minerals on it. All results were negative until he tried using uranium salts. The result with these compounds was a deep blackening of the plate.\n\nHowever, it soon became clear that the blackening of the plate had nothing to do with phosphorescence because the plate blackened when the mineral was kept in the dark. Also non-phosphorescent salts of uranium and even metallic uranium blackened the plate. Clearly there was some new form of radiation that could pass through paper that was causing the plate to blacken.\n\nAt first it seemed that the new radiation was similar to the then recently discovered X-rays. However further research by Becquerel, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Ernest Rutherford and others discovered that radioactivity was significantly more complicated. Different types of decay can occur.\n\nFor instance, it was found that an electric or magnetic field could split such emissions into three beams. For lack of better terms, the rays were given the alphabetic names alpha, beta, and gamma, names they still hold today. It was immediately obvious from the direction of electromagnetic forces that alpha rays carried a positive charge, beta rays carried a negative charge, and gamma rays were neutral. From the magnitude of deflection, it was also clear that alpha particles were much more massive than beta particles. Passing alpha rays through a thin glass membrane and trapping them in a discharge tube allowed researchers to study the emission spectrum of the resulting gas, and ultimately prove that alpha particles are in fact helium nuclei. Other experiments showed the similarity between beta radiation and cathode rays; they are both streams of electrons, and between gamma radiation and X-rays.\n\nThese researchers also discovered that many other chemical elements have radioactive isotopes. Radioactivity also guided Marie Curie to isolate radium from barium; the two elements' chemical similarity would otherwise have made them difficult to distinguish.\n\nThe dangers of radioactivity and of radiation were not immediately recognized. Acute effects of radiation were first observed in the use of X-rays when an Serbo-Croatian-American electric engineer Nikola Tesla intentionally subjected his fingers to X-rays in 1896. He published his observations concerning the burns that developed, though he attributed them to ozone rather than to the X-rays. Fortunately his injuries healed later.\n\nThe genetic effects of radiation, including the effects on cancer risk, were recognized much later. It was only in 1927 that Hermann Joseph Muller published his research that showed the genetic effects. In 1947 he was awarded the Nobel prize for his findings.\n\nBefore the biological effects of radiation were known, many physicians and corporations had begun marketing radioactive substances as patent medicine and Radioactive quackery; particularly alarming examples were radium enema treatments, and radium-containing waters to be drunk as tonics. Marie Curie spoke out against this sort of treatment, warning that the effects of radiation on the human body were not well understood (Curie later died from aplastic anemia assumed due to her own work with radium, but later examination of her bones showed that she had been a careful laboratory worker and had a low burden of radium; a better candidate for her disease was her long exposure to unshielded X-ray tubes while a volunteer medical worker in WW I). By the 1930's, after a number of cases of bone-necrosis and death in enthusiasts, radium-containing medical products had all but vanished from the market.\n
600593
radiation according to me is due to excitation of electrons from lower energy levels to higher levels and vice versa.During exitation electrons obsorb or release energy in form of packets called quanta which will travel in form of waves
758598
Gamma rays, heat and, in the case of a few highly-radioactive elements, light; they glow in the dark.  Beta particles which are high-energy electrons.   Their kinetic energy can be converted into light by a phosphor such as zinc sulphide, or if they enter a transparent medium with a high refractive index, they emit blue Cerenkov radiation.  Radioactive materials are warmer than their surroundings because alpha particles, beta rays and neutrons are all fast-moving particles and when they are absorbed their kinetic energy is converted into heat.  In a nuclear reactor the heat is used to raise steam which drives a turbine.  In the thermionic generators used on deep space probes it is converted directly into about 200 watts or so of electricity.