Bananas Emit Antimatter Almost Every 75 Minutes

April 23, 2013 at 11:09 pm Chad Upton

By Chad Upton

Potassium-40 is a fairly unstable isotope, although the half life is nearly a billion years.

Because bananas have so much of this isotope, there is enough decay to generate one positron (approximately) every 75 minutes.

A positron is basically the opposite of an electron. It has the same mass as an electron, but a positive charge instead of a negative one. It is the electron’s antimatter doppelgänger.

Broken Secrets | Facebook | Twitter | Email | Kindle

photo: keepon (cc)

sources: tertiarysource.net, wikipedia (positron, gamma ray)

Share: Facebook

Twitter

More

LinkedIn

Tumblr



Pocket

Reddit



Print

Pinterest



Email

Like this: Like Loading... Related

Entry filed under: Food and Drink. Tags: antimatter, banana, electron, isotope, positron, potassium.