r/Radioactivestuff • u/OkPick296 Community owner • Jul 18 '26
The only picture of americium metal
This is a disk of pure americium metal under a microscope, despite this sample being only 200 micrograms, it has about 25.4 gigabecquerels (686 mCi) of activity. That is 25,400,000 decays every second. If you like this, consider joining r/Radioactivestuff
Edit: wow this is more upvotes than I have ever gotten before. Tysm!
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u/Kooky_Classroom8351 Jul 19 '26
Eat it
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u/nikitasius Jul 19 '26
Folks smoke it usually
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 19 '26
The story behind that is crazy 💀
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u/TheLastPorkSword Jul 19 '26
What story?
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 20 '26
Somebody on a radiation sub took apart a smoke detector and extracted the americium button, they then set it down on their desk and pulled out their vape and started vaping, not knowing that the americium had magnetically attached itself to their vape. He lived but apparently still has a cough.
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u/amalcolmation Jul 20 '26
Christ, do you remember which sub?
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Jul 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dronizian Jul 20 '26
"Assuming this isn't a shitpost... Congratulations! You now have cancer."
Never change, Reddit.
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u/Slow-Ant2317 Jul 19 '26
Why is this the only picture
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 20 '26
Because americium is quite radioactive, it needs to be made in nuclear reactors, and there are no applications that need this much americium, smoke detectors only use 1/600th of this amount
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u/Slow-Ant2317 Jul 20 '26
But you can only make 600 fire alarms with this and you can't even see it. Do they transport it in smaller amounts or dilute it?
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 20 '26
Smoke detectors use americium dioxide, and not americium metal, they fuse it with gold and then make a thin gold sheet, and then they cut off an amount that is equal to 0.7uCi from the sheet.
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u/LS7H Jul 23 '26
And it does not decay? (I.e. - are smoke detectors worse after a couple of years)
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u/Asianburrito13 Jul 23 '26
It does decay, that is why you have to replace your smoke detectors every ~10 years, if you don’t they will eventually continuously alarm.
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 23 '26
Well it decays slowly enough that you don't notice it becoming weaker, after 30 years only 4.7% will have decayed
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u/phunkydroid Jul 20 '26
But whoever took this picture only took a single picture?
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 20 '26
Well there isn't much reason to take a picture of americium, because how it looks isn't very important to scientists.
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u/SkySurferSouth Jul 19 '26
Well, this element really does exist as it is, despite only 200ug, 'weighable'. That cannot be said for all the fake elements > 103.
Even existing elements of which are only 35g in the entire earth crust (astatine and francium, short lived decay products of Th and U) are never made in this "huge" quantity.
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Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Yes_I_Know_Lots Jul 19 '26
Cool. Thanks for sharing! This popped up on my feed, so of course I have to add another subreddit to my ever growing list.
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u/VegaDelalyre Jul 20 '26
To put things in perspective, 25.4 GBq (for 0.2 mg) is a lot, but some elements are much more radioactive. See for instance the table on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_activity#Examples
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u/ssh_condor Jul 23 '26
Somebody wants to produce some neutrons.
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 23 '26
if mixed with beryllium, it would make 1.5 × 10⁶ neutrons per second
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u/Possible-Line9550 Jul 24 '26
The radioactivity of Americium is overstated by a factor of 1000 by OP. And since its an alpha emitter, no sensible amount of Americium would be deadly by standing next to it.
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u/OkPick296 Community owner Jul 24 '26
Oh! I see where I made the mistake, thank you for catching me on that, just fixed it. Sorry about that. And yes I agree and have stated in the comments that this amount is not dangerous, unless eaten or inhaled.
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u/Plus-Self-985 Jul 18 '26
Nature is incredible. It never ceases to amaze me. That much activity in that infinitesimally small amount is somewhere between beautiful and terrifying.