Deep in the basement of the physics department at the University of Bristol, Dr Dave Megson-Smith is telling me about how much he dislikes wearing a hazmat suit whenever he goes to Chernobyl.
"Once you get in the field, you just start sweating," says the nuclear physicist. "And suddenly, you're far less aware of your surroundings. You're less safe."
Standing next to Megson-Smith, his colleague Dr Yannick Verbelen adds: "You're tucked into plastic and you're perspiring. It's already a stressful environment because there's radiation around and you don't want to linger too much."
As we talk in the basement, I'm getting an inkling of what that's like. Granted, we're wearing thin blue lab coats rather than hazmat suits, but the heat emanating from the large machines whirring away around us makes it easier to understand the feeling of not wanting to linger. Adding to this is the fact that some of the machines also contain tiny specks of radioactive material, brought back from nuclear sites.
Megson-Smith and Verbelen specialise in disaster response and clean-up operations, carrying out what they call 'nuclear forensics': gathering radioactive samples from disaster zones to analyse in their lab. With these, they hope to extract information such as whether the sample (usually no bigger than a grain of sand) came from fallout or a nuclear fusion reactor.
Their current focus, however, is on making it easier to identify radioactive material in disaster zones. And the idea they've come up with is to make it glow a luminous yellow-green with a new contraption that they've dubbed the 'Dark Star.'
FROM A SAFE DISTANCE
Instead of relying on Geiger counters, and their frantic ticking familiar from so many films, Dark Star will detect uranium with an ultraviolet (UV) light camera that may end up attached to a drone or robot. The major advantage of a visual sensor, such as this, is that scientists can conduct radioactive monitoring from a safe distance and limit their risk of exposure.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1422872401/1718027913/articles/1o6wXlt8s1718047693000/5vyEAoFy21718047899748.jpg]
The Dark Star is the world's most powerful UV fluorescence imaging device. 'Star' refers to its incredibly intense light, while 'Dark' alludes to the fact that the light is invisible to the human eye. It has been designed to be autonomous, calibrating itself to the environment, illuminating any radioactive material and recording the data all while the scientists remain out of harm's way. Geiger counters tend to be handheld and generally have to be used at close quarters. They also only tell you that radioactive material is nearby and don't specifically locate it.
Megson-Smith, Verbelen and their small project team made a breakthrough with the technology in March, when they travelled to the abandoned Cold War-era uranium mines in the deserts of Arizona, USA, and carried out tests.
The team is already internationally recognised for using robotics to track the spread and risk of radioactive incidents. When a lorry travelling across Western Australia in January 2023 dropped a radioactive capsule strong enough to kill someone in a few hours if touched, the team was kept on standby to find it. The capsule was the size of your smallest fingernail.
When it comes to the Dark Star, it's essentially a highly sophisticated sensor system not unlike an expensive digital camera, but one that can take pictures of things that we can't see.
"In contrast to what we've been made to believe by The Simpsons, uranium doesn't actually glow in the dark. It's just a heavy metal that's not too dissimilar to lead, albeit slightly radioactive," says Verbelen.
"However, when uranium is exposed to water and air in the natural environment, it 'rusts' and forms uranium oxides. When those oxid...
"Once you get in the field, you just start sweating," says the nuclear physicist. "And suddenly, you're far less aware of your surroundings. You're less safe."
Standing next to Megson-Smith, his colleague Dr Yannick Verbelen adds: "You're tucked into plastic and you're perspiring. It's already a stressful environment because there's radiation around and you don't want to linger too much."
As we talk in the basement, I'm getting an inkling of what that's like. Granted, we're wearing thin blue lab coats rather than hazmat suits, but the heat emanating from the large machines whirring away around us makes it easier to understand the feeling of not wanting to linger. Adding to this is the fact that some of the machines also contain tiny specks of radioactive material, brought back from nuclear sites.
Megson-Smith and Verbelen specialise in disaster response and clean-up operations, carrying out what they call 'nuclear forensics': gathering radioactive samples from disaster zones to analyse in their lab. With these, they hope to extract information such as whether the sample (usually no bigger than a grain of sand) came from fallout or a nuclear fusion reactor.
Their current focus, however, is on making it easier to identify radioactive material in disaster zones. And the idea they've come up with is to make it glow a luminous yellow-green with a new contraption that they've dubbed the 'Dark Star.'
FROM A SAFE DISTANCE
Instead of relying on Geiger counters, and their frantic ticking familiar from so many films, Dark Star will detect uranium with an ultraviolet (UV) light camera that may end up attached to a drone or robot. The major advantage of a visual sensor, such as this, is that scientists can conduct radioactive monitoring from a safe distance and limit their risk of exposure.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1422872401/1718027913/articles/1o6wXlt8s1718047693000/5vyEAoFy21718047899748.jpg]
The Dark Star is the world's most powerful UV fluorescence imaging device. 'Star' refers to its incredibly intense light, while 'Dark' alludes to the fact that the light is invisible to the human eye. It has been designed to be autonomous, calibrating itself to the environment, illuminating any radioactive material and recording the data all while the scientists remain out of harm's way. Geiger counters tend to be handheld and generally have to be used at close quarters. They also only tell you that radioactive material is nearby and don't specifically locate it.
Megson-Smith, Verbelen and their small project team made a breakthrough with the technology in March, when they travelled to the abandoned Cold War-era uranium mines in the deserts of Arizona, USA, and carried out tests.
The team is already internationally recognised for using robotics to track the spread and risk of radioactive incidents. When a lorry travelling across Western Australia in January 2023 dropped a radioactive capsule strong enough to kill someone in a few hours if touched, the team was kept on standby to find it. The capsule was the size of your smallest fingernail.
When it comes to the Dark Star, it's essentially a highly sophisticated sensor system not unlike an expensive digital camera, but one that can take pictures of things that we can't see.
"In contrast to what we've been made to believe by The Simpsons, uranium doesn't actually glow in the dark. It's just a heavy metal that's not too dissimilar to lead, albeit slightly radioactive," says Verbelen.
"However, when uranium is exposed to water and air in the natural environment, it 'rusts' and forms uranium oxides. When those oxid...
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BBC Science Focus (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2024