![]() ![]() The telltale sign of tantalum-180m’s decay is the release of a gamma ray. Tantalum is among the rarest elements in the solar system, and the tantalum-180m isotope makes up only 0.012% of naturally occurring tantalum. Still, the longer the lifetime, the more difficult catching the decay becomes. Scientists can increase their chances of witnessing a decay by increasing the number of atoms they monitor and by decreasing backgrounds. Some tantalum-180m atoms will decay more quickly than others. That’s far longer than the universe itself has existed. Theory predicts that the half-life of tantalum-180m, one of tantalum’s two natural states, should be between 10 17 and 10 18 years. “Tantalum-180m is the only unobserved metastable state decay,” Meijer says. ![]() Scientists know this because they have seen almost every one of them do it-except one. These stuck particles, called metastable isomers, do eventually come unstuck again. It might take several seconds for the stuck particle to decay back to its ground state. But sometimes, says Ralph Massarczyk, also a staff scientist at Los Alamos, the proton or neutron gets stuck.Ī “stuck” particle-our child on a swing, now mysteriously suspended mid-air-is ruled by a strange law of physics called “spin-suppression.” To regain stasis, the proton or neutron decays, falling back like the swing swaying back to its lower energy level. When a proton or neutron in the center of an atom receives a burst of energy, it leaps to a higher, unstable energy level, like a child receiving a push on a playground swing. In the nuclear world, particles are constantly seeking equilibrium. ![]()
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