Background Radiation facts

While investigating facts about Background Radiation Definition and Background Radiation Levels, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Low Background Steel, steel produced in pre-nuclear ages, which is the only kind of steel that works for various medical and scientifical equipment, since the post-nuclear steel is contaminated by radiation.

how background radiation is measured?

All steel produced after 1945 is contaminated with background radiation because of the use of nuclear weapons. Such steel is unusable for many scientific and medical applications and steel made before 1945, often taken from sunken battleships, must be used instead.

Explain what background radiation is?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what is cosmic background radiation. Here are 29 of the best facts about Background Radiation Sources and Background Radiation Map I managed to collect.

what's background radiation?

1. The measly 20W signal from Voyager 1, the equivalent of a fridge light-bulb, can be distinguished from background radiation in the sky almost instantly, despite being 11 billion miles away

2. David Hahn, who at 17 years old attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard, which at one point was emitting over 1000 times normal background radiation.

3. In 1994 a 17 yr old boy used radioactive material from homemade items like clocks to build himself a nuclear reactor. Although it never came anywhere near reaching critical mass, it ended up emitting dangerous levels of radiation, likely over 1,000 times normal background radiation.

4. Space temperature can never get lower than a minimum of just 2.7 Kelvin or -270.45 Celsius, the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which permeates the entire Universe.

5. All alcoholic drinks sold in the United States are required to be mildly radioactive. If alcohol is made in a lab it won't have any radioactive signature but alcohol made from plants will always be slightly radioactive due to the background radiation in the air and ground.

6. The Manhatten Project raised background radiation levels so much, that for a long time geiger counters were built out of pre-1940s steel, mainly salvaged from sunken battleships

7. The coldest known natural place in the Universe is the Boomerang Nebula. At −272.15°C it is 1°C warmer than absolute zero, and 2°C colder than background radiation from the Big Bang.

8. Chernobyl affected microbes which cause decomposition. Researchers hung leaves from uncontaminated areas across the exclusion zone with varying background radiation to study rate of decay. After 1 year the leaves in the hot zones kept ~60% mass but leaves in normal areas lost ~90%

Why does background radiation vary across the uk?

You can easily fact check why does background radiation vary by examining the linked well-known sources.

Part of the static seen on old TV sets is caused by cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang

The Cosmological Axis of Evil, a anomaly where features of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation appear to be aligned with the plane and movement of Earth's orbit. This violates the Copernican principle and since its discovery has remained one of the unsolved problems in astronomy. - source

An every day smoker receives 160k microsieverts of radiation per year. This is more than 3 times the max allowed for a US Radiation Worker, 16 times more than those around Fukushima disaster, 80 years worth of background radiation on Earth. 30yrs of smoking is 2400 yrs of background radiation.

A small percentage of the static displayed on analog style televisions is cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang. - source

When the microwave background radiation was emitted about how big was the universe?

David Hahn, who at 17 years old attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard, which at one point was emitting over 1000 times normal background radiation.

How to calculate background radiation?

Fiestaware kitchenware made up until the 1970's and Coleman Lanterns made into the mid 1990's emit significant amounts of radiation above background. A red Fiestaware plate from the period is about 20% Uranium and Coleman used thorium in their lantern mantels.

The highest background radiation in an inhabited area is found in Ramsar, Iran. Mainly due to the naturally radioactive limestone used as a building material. The 1000 most exposed residents receive six times the recommended limit.

There is a city in Iran which is naturally highly radioactive due to being built on top of a radium deposit which is carried to the surface by local hot springs. It has a population of over 30,000 people, and one specific area receives 80x the usual background radiation.

In the distant future intelligent beings will have no way of formulating the big bang theory due to the infinite expansion of the universe and the cosmic background radiation fading away

Sailors on U.S. nuclear powered submarines are exposed to less radiation annually than the average person living above ground. The nuclear reactors are well shielded and being underwater protects them from normal background radiation.