On 6/14/13 10:55 AM, DaveH wrote:
Most RTG sources use Plutonium 238 or Strontium 90. Primary decay component
is Alpha particles which can be stopped dead by a few mm of shielding.
Good article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
Dave
but not ALL the radiation is alpha particles.
It also generates some x rays (up to about 100keV and gammas (up to
about 1 MeV).
Sure, the fraction is very tiny, but when you have a lot of
disintegrations/second, even a small percentage can add up
(this is the problem with so-called aneutronic fusion reactions)
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