Page 27 - 4th edition Nayi Udaan
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Muography,
An Emerging Scientific
Technique
A into an electron and two
recurring theme in science
fiction novels is the idea of
neutrinos. Nevertheless, its
‘walking through walls’ - of
being able to see through layers purpose in scientific
research and technology is
of the exterior of a structure boundless. The muon has
and explore what lies inside. the capability to penetrate
While humans themselves are through matter with ease
far from achieving this concept, and with low scattering
it does not lie outside the scope rates, making it a perfect fit
of abilities of a certain kind of to provide various kinds of
subatomic particle called the scientific information. Its
‘muon’, as part of an upcoming higher mass allows it to
technique known as ‘muogra- traverse materials like
phy’. rocks for longer periods of
time; it is also highly easy
Muons trace their origins to to detect using our current
large-scale cosmic events in technology. Finally,
space like supernovas, which release cosmic cosmic-ray muons are cost-free and their
rays. The collisions of these cosmic rays - availability is unlimited on human times-
composed mostly of high-energy protons - cales.
with the atoms of gases in the Earth’s atmo- Given this abundance of advantages, it is no
sphere result in the formation of pions and surprise that these particles are being put to
ultimately the muon: a particle that is essen- credible use through muon radiography -
tially the same as an electron, except 207 simply, muography - that measures the
times heavier in mass. The astounding thing absorption of muons in a structure to reveal
is that every square centimetre of Earth at sea its density or any gaps within its construc-
level, including the space at the top of our tion. Muography offers many advantages
heads, gets hit by one muon every minute as over conventional scanning approaches.
part of this constant shower of subatomic Muons penetrate much further than X-rays,
particles from the sky. they do essentially zero damage to the materi-
al, and they are provided for free by the
Despite its similarity to the electron, the cosmos.
muon is highly unstable – as soon as it is
created, it decays into other particles. On These characteristics open up some extraor-
average, a muon survives for only 2 dinary possibilities for their usage and
millionths of a second before disintegrating application.
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