Fin as in the end, last, final not Fish Fin. There was one more instrument up in Terra Lab that I wanted to tell you about. It is a spectrophotometer to measure radionuclides. Now let me translate that. Actually, we will do it together by breaking it down. Spectro - The spectrum is back with us. I sense a theme here. Photo - having to do with light (remember photosynthesis?) A photometer is a gadget that can measure light intensity. So without going into a great amount of detail suffice it to say that a spectrophotometer measures absorbance and transmission of certain wavelengths of light. There are different types and you can different information, but essentially it all boils down to how much light is being absorbed and how much is being transmitted. The one we will be looking at today monitors gamma rays.
You recognize this guy. Neal is showing us the Spectrophotometer set up by the CTBTO. Note the DO NOT OPEN OR ALARM WILL SOUND sign on the front.
This is a view inside the CTBTO Monitoring Apparatus...do I hear an alarm going off? Nah, we're okay.
On to the next part - radionuclides. Without all the fancy explanation (most of which is over my head as well, no pun intended) this machine is looking for newly created radiation particles that occur within the nucleus of an atom. This happens in nature but it also can be created as in nuclear detonations. See where we are going with this?
Close up view of the digital read out of the gamma ray spectrophotomer.
This Spectrophotometer is monitored by the Prepartory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). There are three basic places to look for nuclear explosions - Land, Water, or Air. The machine at Palmer Station monitors the air. Specifically, it is looking for nuclear particles that are trapped in the clouds. For example, say someone detonates a nuclear bomb up in the air. Those particles will spray across the atmosphere. Many becoming trapped in the clouds. Given the air currents, these clouds and particles will travel around the globe and some may make their way over Antarctica. This instrument gathers air particles on a strip of specialized material, wraps around through the machine and then it sits and decays for a bit. Then it is all sent off to Vienna for analysis.
This big spindle collects the paper that collects the particles.
That spindle is pretty big, so long strips of paper have to be sewn together to keep a consistent piece feeding through the machine. Neal is quite handy with a needle and thread. Maybe he'll fix my socks.
Here it is all wrapped up in protective covering coming out of the other end of the machine.
What you may or may not know is that radioactive materials decay at specific rates. That's how we can carbon date fossils (hmmm, another great idea for a journal). Anyway, that's why they let this sit for a bit. If radioactive material is found in Vienna, they look at the date of the sample, and back track the weather and wind currents and try to pinpoint the site of the explosion. This apparatus is in its own locked room, but not highly classified which would ban me from looking at it, talking about it, and taking pictures. As you can see from the map there are monitoring sites all over the planet.
This gives you an idea of all the types of monitoring stations and laboratories that exist around the world that are related to this commission.