Cosmic Rays To Reveal the Melted Nuclear Fuel In Fukushima's Reactors

the_newsbeagle writes: Muons, produced when cosmic rays collide with molecules in the atmosphere, are streaming through your body as you read this. The particles pass through most matter unimpeded, however they can interact with heavy elements like uranium and plutonium. That's why engineers at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant are using muon detectors to look for the melted nuclear fuel inside the plant's three melted-down reactors. By determining where muons are being diverted from their paths, the detectors create images of the blobs of fuel. That's necessary because nobody knows exactly where the radioactive gloop ended up during the meltdowns.

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Muon images of the shadow of the moon

[mbone]

Muon shadowgraphs of the Moon, a signature of the Moon's cosmic ray shadow on the upper atmosphere, are a common way of testing neutrino detectors buried under a km or more of rock. (Muons from the atmosphere tend to be the major source of confusion for such detectors; that's why they frequently do best looking down, as muons can't go through 12,000 km of rock.)

Oh, and archeologists have used muons to look through the Great Pyramid.