How Nuclear Radiation Works

You've probably heard people talk about radiation both in fiction and in real life. For example, when the Enterprise approaches a star on "Star Trek," a member of the crew might warn about the radiation levels. In Tom Clancy's book "The Hunt for Red October," the Russian submarine has a nuclear reactor accident with radiation leakage that forces the crew to abandon ship. At Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, nuclear power plants released radioactive substances into the atmosphere during nuclear accidents.

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