Originally posted by Shaggy
Well, I understand how radiation works. After a nuclear blast the destruction of an atom releases the neutrons that orbit the atom's core. These free neutrons are the damaging elements of radiation. They fly around and knock bits of your cells' DNA off, and that's why you get cancer from radiation (The cell mutates because of the missing fragment). Now if you get a high enough dose of radiation the damage comes a lot quicker and more gooey. I may have my terminology and PBS wrong but that's how I remember it.
Now if an Antimatter atom comes in contact with a regular atom the two elements destroy each other. So wouldn't the little orbity things destroy each other as well? Hence no radiation?
Actually, there are five types of radiation created by a nuclear reaction. They are:
1) Neutrinos: these particles ordinarily pass right through even the densest matter without hitting anything--your own body has billions of them passing through it every second you are alive, and only about once a month does a neutrino actually interact with another particle in your body. Thus, neutrino radiation is not only harmless, but also nearly undetectable.
2) Neutrons: this is the scary one. Neutrons with moderate energy tend to fuse with the nuclei in the atoms of your cells, which results in either a transmutation of the atom into a different element, thus totally screwing up the molecule it is in, or else the atom becomes a heavy isotope that will eventually spontaneously fission and release secondary radiation inside your body. Neutron radiation results in the aforementioned DNA mutation.
3) Alpha particles: These are protons or atomic nuclei that have been stripped of their electrons. When they meet solid matter, they tend to grab electrons from it and be "captured" by the material, so a barrier as thin as a few sheets of tinfoil is sufficient to block them. In fact, alpha particles usually will not even penetrate all the way through unprotected human skin.
4) Beta particles: these are loose electrons. They tend to be more energetic than alpha particles, but they can still be blocked by a thin, dense barrier (unless they are super-high energy such as cosmic rays).
5) Gamma radiation: This is basically high energy photons--pure electromagnetic energy. Gamma rays easily penetrate even meter-thick layers of solid lead since they are so energetic. The danger from them is because they can easily ionize atoms--if an electron in one of the atoms of your cells is struck by a gamma ray, then it becomes energized and will often latch onto a different atom. Thus, gamma radiation plays havoc with the chemical bonds in an organism.
A pure matter-antimatter reaction produces only Gamma radiation, but it produces more than four hundred times as much of it as a nuclear reaction using the same mass of fuel.
The information I picked up was from a PBS show that was talking about dirty bombs, so they were dealing with materials that were already highly radioactive.
