Q 01/05

An alpha particle, two protons and two neutrons bound together, is identical to the nucleus of which light element?

A) Beryllium

B) Helium

C) Carbon

D) Oxygen

Answer · why

B) Helium

Helium on Earth is mostly made this way: alpha particles shot out of decaying rock lose speed, pick up two electrons and collect underground in natura...

Q 02/05

Which former Russian agent died in London in 2006 after being poisoned with alpha-emitting polonium-210?

A) Sergei Skripal

B) Boris Berezovsky

C) Alexander Perepilichny

D) Alexander Litvinenko

Answer · why

D) Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko's doctors were baffled for three weeks: polonium-210 gives off almost no gamma rays, and its alpha particles are hard to pick up ...

Q 03/05

Heat from the alpha decay of plutonium-238 has powered which pair of NASA probes since their launch in 1977?

A) Voyager

B) Pioneer

C) Viking

D) Helios

Answer · why

A) Voyager

Voyager 1 and 2 each carry three generators that turn the warmth of decaying plutonium into electricity, which kept them reporting home for decades, a...

Q 04/05

Which famous linen relic did three laboratories radiocarbon date in 1988, finding it was woven in the Middle Ages?

A) Veil of Veronica

B) Sudarium of Oviedo

C) Shroud of Turin

D) Holy Coat of Trier

Answer · why

C) Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin's flax stopped taking in carbon-14 the day it was harvested, and the decay since then dated it to 1260–1390, the very period in wh...

Q 05/05

A positron is the mirror-image twin of the electron, so positron decay naturally produces which exotic kind of matter?

A) Dark matter

B) Antimatter

C) Strange matter

D) Degenerate matter

Answer · why

B) Antimatter

Antimatter was first seen in the form of a positron. When one meets an electron, the pair vanish in a flash of gamma rays, so positrons from a decay n...