Greetings

p2 intro

Have you ever heard of the film Oppenheimer released in July 2023?

Tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project to create an
atomic bomb that would be used against Japan during WWII

Gamma rays are one of the fallout particles released by atomic bombs which lead to
serious medical hazards from external exposure to penetrating radiation released from
decaying particles.

The bombing immediately killed an estimate 80,000 people, while many of the
survivors would face leukaemia, cancer and other side effects from the radiation

p3 table of contents

p4 discovery

1. discovered by Paul Ulrich Villard in 1900

2. The term gamma ray was coined by British physicist Ernest Rutherford in
1903, following early studies of the emissions of radioactive nuclei.

p5

1. Gamma rays are electromagnetic waves of very high frequency, with shortest
wavelength and highest energy.
2. Gamma rays are produced during the disintegration of radioactive atomic
nuclei and the decay of certain subatomic particles. Gamma rays are also
produced through the process of pair annihilation, in which an electron and its
antiparticle, a positron, vanish and two photons are created. They can also be
generated during the decay of some unstable subatomic particles.
p6 properties

1. very high penetrating power (never fully absorbed)

1. Gamma rays are more penetrating, in matter, and can damage living
cells to a great extent.
2. Shielding against gamma rays is essential because they can cause
diseases to skin or blood, eye disorders and cancers.
2. similar to x-ray but more dangerous as it has higher frequency and energy
3. has weak ionizing power

p7

1. travels with the speed of light

2. not deflected by electric and magnetic fields

p8 applications

1. Gamma rays are used in medicine (radiotherapy), industry (sterilization and

disinfection) and astronomy
2. Medical applications of gamma rays include the imaging technique of positron
emission tomography (PET) and radiation therapies to treat cancerous tumours.
3. In a PET scan, a short-lived positron-emitting radioactive pharmaceutical,
chosen because of its participation in a particular physiological process (e.g.,
brain function), is injected into the body. Emitted positrons quickly combine
with nearby electrons and, through pair annihilation, give rise to two 511-keV
gamma rays traveling in opposite directions. After detection of the gamma
rays, a computer-generated reconstruction of the locations of the gamma-ray
emissions produces an image that highlights the location of the biological
process being examined.
4. As a deeply penetrating ionizing radiation, gamma rays cause significant
biochemical changes in living cells . Radiation therapies make use of this
property to selectively destroy cancerous cells in small localized tumours.
Radioactive isotopes are injected or implanted near the tumour; gamma rays
 that are continuously emitted by the radioactive nuclei bombard the affected
area and arrest the development of the malignant cells.
5. Advantages: the radiation is pointed at a particular part of the body and in the
most cases it does not destroy the surrounding parts. Normal cells in the
radiotherapy area may also be damaged but they can usually repair themselves.
6. Some disadvantages are: Gamma rays could lead to an abnormal mitosis,
implies a change of DNA, which leads to genetic damage and to DNA
mutations in other cells that survive the radiation. This may lead to the
development of a second cancer.

p9

1. Gamma sterilization is used to sterilize human tissue grafts: connective tissue

allograft, such as bone, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, dura mater, skin, heart
valves and corneas, which are widely used for reconstructive surgery in many
clinical disciplines, including orthopaedics, traumatology, neurosurgery,
cardiac surgery and plastic surgery. Sterilization by radiation is also used for
sterilization of plastic syringes, hypodermic needles, scalpels, surgical blades,
adhesive dressings
2. Food sterilization by gamma irradiation is the process of exposing food to
ionizing radiation to destroy microorganisms, namely bacteria, or insects that
might be present in the food.
3. Gamma rays used for sterile processing are formed with the self-disintegration
of Cobalt-60 (60Co). The gamma irradiation sterilization process does not
involve sufficient energy to cause the treated products to become radioactive; it
will only harm the microorganisms on the products.
4. Today, 40–50% of disposable medical products manufactured in developed
countries are radiation sterilized and there are over 200 gamma irradiators
worldwide in operation for a variety of purposes
5. Also used to Check for cracks or flaws in materials that cannot be seen by the
naked eyes & Measure the fluid levels in water and oil industries
 6. Advantages: Gamma rays have a high penetration power so materials can be
sterilized after filling them in the final container; The method is suitable for all
types of materials such as dry, moist and even frozen items; The method is
considered to be reliable and can be accurately controlled
7. Disadvantages: There is some risk involved since exposure to radiation may
be harmful to workers; It can produce undesirable changes in medicine such as
colour, solubility and texture of the product; It can actually damage the
material it’s meant to sterilize; It’s expensive

p10

1. Gamma rays sent out by objects embedded inside galaxies greatly affect the
space around these objects and how these galaxies evolve. By studying gamma
rays, NASA can better understand how the laws of physics work in the extreme
environments found in the distant universe.
2. Gamma-ray telescopes are designed to observe high-energy astrophysical
systems, such as black holes, neutron stars and clusters of galaxies
3. Example: Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launched in 2008 by NASA
4. Fermi was launched June 11, 2008. Scientists hope to use the telescope to
observe the high-energy universe until 2018. Fermi was first named GLAST.
GLAST stood for Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope. After GLAST was
launched and started its work, it was renamed after scientist Enrico Fermi.
5. The Fermi telescope has two main instruments. It has a large telescope that
finds gamma rays with 10 million to more than 300 billion times the energy of
visible light. The spacecraft also has detectors that observe gamma-ray bursts.
Gamma-ray bursts are brief flashes of gamma rays. Scientists think most of
these bursts come from exploding stars that become black holes as their cores
collapse. More than half of the known gamma-ray sources are mysterious.
Scientists do not know what causes the gamma rays to be emitted from these
sources. The information from Fermi is sent back to scientists on Earth. The
scientists use the data to create pictures of the objects Fermi studies. These
pictures help scientists discover the sources of gamma rays.