What is Radon?
Radon is a colorless, odorless radioactive gas which comes from the natural breakdown (radioactive decay) of radium, which is a decay product of uranium. Uranium and radium are both common elements in the soil. The Surgeon General has warned that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. today. Only smoking causes more lung cancer deaths. If you smoke and your home has high radon, your risk of lung cancer is especially high.
Radon originates from Uranium 238, a radioactive element. Almost anywhere in the world you can find some radioactive Uranium 238 in the soil. Pennsylvania in particular has a lot of it. Radioactive simply means that the element or atom occasionally loses part of itself and changes into a different element. During this radioactive decay the element releases energy and causes varying amounts of damage to whatever surrounds it. The average amount of time it takes before half of the element has decayed or changed is know as the elements half life. Uranium 238 has a 4.5 billion year half life. See the half lives listed below. Half of the uranium 238 is gone because the earth is also about 4.5 billion years old, but there’s still plenty left in the soil. The next element, Thorium 234 has only 24 days before half of it is gone. The following is the decay series from Uranium 238 to Radium 226. Uranium 238 (all are solid particles) 4.5 billion years Thorium 234 24 days Protactinium 234 half lif
Radon (symbol Rn on the periodic table) is a naturally occurring radioactive gas. It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and chemically inert. Unless you test for it, there is no way of telling how much is present. Radon is formed by the natural radioactive decay of uranium in rock, soil, water, and building materials. Naturally existing, low levels of uranium occur widely in Earth’s crust. It can be found in Georgia bedrock, granite and sand. Radon moves through the ground to the air above, often due to changes in pressure. Some remains below the surface and dissolves in water that collects and flows under the ground’s surface. Radon has a half-life of about four days—half of a given quantity of it breaks down every four days. When radon undergoes radioactive decay, it emits ionizing radiation in the form of alpha particles. It also produces short-lived decay products, often called progeny or daughters, some of which are also radioactive. Unlike radon, the progeny are not gases and can
