Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#2That's like literally searching for a rice corn in a giant haystack. The only way I can see that search to remotely have a chance is an equally giant swarm of drones with radiation detectors.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#3Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#4An urgent warning to stay meters away from a button-battery sized object somewhere along a 1,400 km road? Seems kind of pointless.
> DFES Country North chief superintendent David Gill said there would be "challenges" in locating such a small object.
Wouldn't the radioactivity make finding such a small object far, far easier? It looks like the road is two lanes with a dirt shoulder. Couldn't they get a truck, mount several geiger counters on a pole long enough to sweep the road and shoulder, and drive the road looking for a spike in radiation?
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#5That's like literally searching for a rice corn in a giant haystack. The only way I can see that search to remotely have a chance is an equally giant swarm of drones with radiation detectors.
Not really. Just drive the route as slow as you need to for your extra sensitive Geiger counter to be able to tell you if it has picked up something beyond background radiation. It’s a road in the middle of nowhere, there shouldn’t be many uncharted radiation sources.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
I can’t remember where but more recently some transiently homeless people died (I want to say in Europe) because they found an object emitting heat and used it for warmth, not realizing it was radioactive and was killing them. Quite sad.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#7An urgent warning to stay meters away from a button-battery sized object somewhere along a 1,400 km road? Seems kind of pointless. > DFES Country North chief superintendent David Gill said there would be "challenges" in locating such a small object. Wouldn't the radioactivity make finding such a small object far, far easier? It looks like the road is two lanes with a dirt shoulder. Couldn't they get a truck, mount se…
Honestly it's likely one of those things you'd have to test so see what your sensitivity and detection radius is.
If it stayed on or very near the road, I would expect it could be detected this way.
Now, if it washed off the road in a storm, well good luck.
And then you also must consider the natural background rate of radioactivity across that enormous area. Crank your sensitivity up too high to gain range and you might just detect radon or potassium, or whatever else is out there decaying.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#8Don’t they have satellites that pick up these readings? I’m always interested how top-secret technologies could filter into local law-enforcement or civil safety efforts, but are prevented from doing so because of the security classification. Like how many times, do you think a murder or something pertinent to solving that has been captured on some sort of satellite or surveillance feed, but it’s never released to that local jurisdictional investigation because The technologies involved are classified or some such.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#9An urgent warning to stay meters away from a button-battery sized object somewhere along a 1,400 km road? Seems kind of pointless. > DFES Country North chief superintendent David Gill said there would be "challenges" in locating such a small object. Wouldn't the radioactivity make finding such a small object far, far easier? It looks like the road is two lanes with a dirt shoulder. Couldn't they get a truck, mount se…
The article throws out the possibility that it's now lodged in somebody's tire, so it could be sitting in some random Australian's driveway instead.
I assume that's the reason for the announcement.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#10https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
I can’t remember where but more recently some transiently homeless people died (I want to say in Europe) because they found an object emitting heat and used it for warmth, not realizing it was radioactive and was killing them. Quite sad.