Why does uranium give off so much radiation as compared to the other elements on earth???
821096
Because being so dense, Uranium is higly unstable. A normal atom simply shouldn't contain that many protons, neutrons, and electrons, so every once in a while, protons start popping out, which is what causes the radiation output. Over time, Uranium gradually changes into lighter and lighter elements through the loss of its electrons. This process is called radioactive decay.\n\nBTW, I don't mean to show off, but I'm only 14.
563214
Ok I think that what you don't understand and what really has not been pointed out yet is that radiation is produced by the decay ( or breakdown) of atoms in the nuclear material.\n\nSay you have a few pounds of nuclear waste. You have Billions and billions and billions of atoms. Remember Avogadro's number? That is the number in just a mole of material. Now imaging that number multiplied by the number of moles in a few pounds! That's a lot of atoms.\n\nNow a fire burns out because it runs out of material to burn. However with all those billions of atoms it could take tens of thousands of years for all the material to be used up.\n\nie if the half life is 10,000 years, that means we have only used up half the material in 10,000 years. So if we had 10 pounds of nuclear waster, in 10,000 years we would still be left with 5 pounds!\n\nNow think of Einsteins famous equation E=mc2.\nm is the mass, c is the speed of light squared, and E is the\nenergy you get out of it. As you can see, even in a very small amount of mass there is tremendous energy.\n\nSo sum it up, even though very small amounts are decaying and giving off large amounts of energy. It is going to take thousand and thousands of years before it is used up.that is why it lasts so long.
526111
Yes, one it is enriched and now radioactive because an atom has been split. I don't know the science. Two people still need to go in and get more uranium. There is a plan to bury it all in an abandoned mine, of limestone I believe to limit the leakage. The problem with burying it all in one place and setting up a perimmiter in this dead zone is that a) it will still spread/ leak. b) shipping stuff from all over the US to one place in the southwest is very risky. Now it is all required to stay on site at each nuclear plant in the special barrels. The plan for transport is very thourough but still not a pleasing idea. If a truck crashes/ terrorist/ whatever goes wrong you will severly contaminate a large area, 50 mile radius or more. \n\nWould you like to know the plan for shipment? Well here it is. First we've got super buckets to carry it in. Big red plastic looking capsules. We ran them over with a train. Didn't break. Was funny to see a huge red thing fly through the air though. Geographers used computer mapping to find routes that were the quickest but also went through the least populated areas. The final decision was based mainly on the least population and it doesn't travel through major cities. Many objected about going through suburban areas but in some cases there just wasn't enough farm land to pass through without having to make such a detour that it would take a long time and effect more population. The highways and streets it must pass through will be closed to traffic and the trucks will be escorted by military. If your local highway is closed for somereason chances are it's passing through your neighborhood.
1086453
Hey all I have is my G.E.D. but I found this to be interesting:\n\nThe Earth as an infrared emitter\n\nThe Earth's surface and the clouds absorb visible and invisible radiation from the sun and re-emit much of the energy as infrared back to the atmosphere. Certain substances in the atmosphere, chiefly cloud droplets and water vapor, but also carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons, absorb this infrared, and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth. Thus the greenhouse effect keeps the atmosphere and surface much warmer than if the infrared absorbers were absent from the atmosphere.
496427
Not sure of the question but... uranium ore is mostly composed of the isotope U-238 which does not support self-sustaining fission reaction very well.  Enrichment is the process of extracting and purifying U-235 which is much more potent for use in weapons.\n\nWell, rockeytj - it's a physics question.  It's not like anyone's going to do it tonight with a blender and some toothpicks.  It takes zillions dollars worth of equipment, not to mention tons and tons of uranium ore.
730866
They are different elements. \n\nNo element of higher atomic number than uranium (92) occurs naturally because they are all radioactive and decay over time.\n\nPlutonium is a transuranic element atomic number 94 that is a by product from nuclear reactors.\n\nOnly some isotopes of uranium are fissile (U 238 is stable). Plutonium is always fissile, and so is more useful and more potent in atomic weapons.
12366
Hi again,\n\n    Well you see, as you know electrons are added up in the 3d orbital in galium, right? So with the increase in number of electrons, the no of protons i.e atomic number also increases. So now the outermost p electron in Al is attracted by 13 protons. But that in galuim is attracted by 31 electrons. So the force of attraction is much more. Now in other atoms, these outer electron attraction is balanced by counter electron electron repulsion. But the added d electrons  cannot shield the outer p electrons much from the force of attraction of the highly charged nucleus. This is similar to the reason why the transition elements contract on increase in at no. Other examples are lanthanide and actinide contractions. If you still dont get it,\nmeet me on Yahoo Messenger. My id is jchemisch. I will talk to you about it. All the best. Hope i can help you if you need!!
451632
Uranium is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol U and atomic number 92. Heavy, silvery-white, toxic, metallic, naturally radioactive, pyrophoric, and teratogenic, uranium belongs to the actinide series and its isotope 235U is used as the fuel for nuclear reactors and the explosive material for nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium is used in incendiary projectile weapons. Uranium is commonly found in very small amounts in rocks, soil, water, plants, and animals (including humans).
946817
It means its giving off energy and or sub atomic particles.\n\nThere are 4 types..  Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Neutrons
223643
because not all of it has turned into lead yet. a half life extends forever. the part that has not decayed is still uranium.
9075
"The transuranium elements are so called because they all lie beyond uranium; that is to say, they are elements with atomic numbers higher than 92 in the periodic table."\nThat's from the web site listed below.\nSo find a periodic chart, and look at all the elements above At. No. 92.
268969
not regurgitating from wikipedia, which isn't always correct OR understandable OR contains little information on the topic, here I go.\n\nUranium, as it's been said is a big atom which contains a whole lot of little pieces. There is something called "binding energy" that keeps all these little pices together. When a big atom undergoes all of this radioactive decay it goes from a smaller mass to a large mass. THe numbers are really small, but using Einstien's E=mc^2 any change of mass no matter how small will produce some meaningful amount of energy. Now, for 238 grams of Uranium, there are 6.023*10^23 atoms. So, you multiply the little miniscule energy emission by a very large number and you get a pretty big amount of energy.\n\nSo, short answer, becuase it is a big atom, it contains a lot of binding energy that is released when the atom splits.
250073
According to this site info...there is no need to worry.  You get way more radiation from everything else around you on a daily basis.\n\nhttp://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/healthycomputing/vdt14.html
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.
1088371
As far as I know, all of them.  Emission spectra are caused by electrons absorbing energy and moving to a higher energy orbit or state (in the case of visible light it is a higher orbit) then when the electron goes back down to the lower state that it usually inhabits, it gives off a photon of an energy equal to the change in the energy level of the electron.  All elements can have excited electrons, and all electrons give off photons when they return to ground state, so all electrons give off emission spectra.\nIf you know of some element out there that doesn't I would be really interested to know what's going on with it.
13866
James's answer about the amounts you would need to inhale/absorb are correct, but I would disagree with his "rare" statement.  A lot of depleted Uranium is used by the military in armour piercing rounds as it is about 10 to 100 times denser than lead.\n\nUnfortunately its use is hazardous and exposes the operators and the target to highly absorbable vapourised and finely powdered depleted Uranium.  This has been linked with Gulf war syndrome in our troops from both Gulf wars where a lot of armour piercing  ammuntion was fired.  The effects on the target are unknown, and we should be watching for signs of radiation sickness in the Iraqi population and rise in birth defects etc as this toxic material builds up in the population.
288114
The atomic number tells you how many protons there are in the nucleus, and that's what identifies the element.  Subtract that number from the atomic weight and you get the number of neutrons.  Uranium has 92 protons and 143 neutrons (U235) or 146 neutrons (U238).  The different weights are called isotopes.  In an electrically neutral atom the number of electrons is the same as the number of protons.  Strip a few electrons away you get an ion (an ionized atom).  It's the structure of the electrons that strongly influences the chemical properties of the element.