Given the parameters to maximize detection and minimize time/resources, how would you direct a drone or something to find the capsule?
How would that change with 2 drones? 4? 8? As many drones as there are flyable Geiger counters in the country?
Dunno if there's enough energy expected to set it off at the expected speeds travelled. Obviously they don't go "ding ding ding". Might find some spurious beta-radiation sources?
https://www.uth.edu/safety/radiation-safety/personal-radiati...
Post process the 256 value gamma spectrum, correcting for cosmic, aircraft signature, remove the mean average W.Australia backround signature, run a full rolling NASVD to peak sharpen and look for 32 and 662 kev twin peaks.
Then you'd start with the local area ground search.
Given the lapsed time already there's a good chance the slug in question was either magpie'd on site or has been picked up in a tire and gone off route.
Guidelines for radioelement mapping using gamma ray spectrometry data International Atomic Energy Agency (2003)
https://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/te_1363_web.p...
Or go full Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy
https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysi...
and read the three publications linked at bottom and get the high res A0 wall map for the dorm room !
( A GUIDE TO THE TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR AIRBORNE GAMMA-RAY SURVEYS Grasty + Minty
https://d28rz98at9flks.cloudfront.net/14861/Rec1995_060.pdf
and the other two )
If you read all that and still feel game for more there's some mad bastard willing to tolerate PhD candidates that want to mix geology and big radiometric data, he even reckons (and I quote):
The integration of these different lines of research has the potential to improve greatly our ability to extract geological information from radiometric datasets for exploration purposes.
...or if there is already a crowdsourced detection effort for looking out for this sort of thing, that'd be a cool map to plot.
The one I got is on Amazon as "Geiger Counter Nuclear Radiation Detector, Professional High Accuracy Radioactive Detector Meter Beta Gamma X Ray Data Tester Marble Dosimeter".
In the budget price range (~$150 and under) my detector, which uses a solid scintillator, and a traditional Geiger tube based device are really the only options worth considering.
The pros of my detector are high range (max 20 mSv/hr vs typically 1 mSv/hr for common Geiger tubes), roughly 3x higher X-ray/gamma sensitivity, and automatic energy-correction of dose rate for better accuracy in realistic scenarios. I also think the design is pretty robust and user-friendly, people seem to like it.
A traditional Geiger tube has some pros also. The only ones worth getting in the budget range, in my opinion, are the GQ GMC type (there are variants but most are basically the same). They are a little cheaper and they have more bells and whistles like data logging. Another pro is that they have higher beta sensitivity, but that's a con also. Antiques like uranium glass and fiestaware are primarily low energy beta emitters so my detector reacts very weakly but a Geiger tube reacts very strongly. That's a con also, though, because when measuring dose you should NOT measure beta, so it means traditional Geiger tubes dramatically overestimate dose rate when they are exposed to beta (a common mistake among beginners).
Just please don't buy any of the super cheap import detectors that have suddenly appeared on the market in the last year or so, they are all terrible.
At higher prices (~$400 and up) there are a lot of different options with pros and cons, it just depends what the intended applications of the detector are.
Let’s hope that some random person doesn’t find it and turn it into a necklace or something. The TNG episode “Thine Own Self” comes to mind.
Stuff of nightmares.
If people are strongly affected by the radiation, then it's probably not going to be that long until the problem is tracked down and dealt with.
I suppose the worst case scenario would be if the radiation was in a place where it wasn't affecting people as acutely and lots of people were passing nearby it, such that the existence of the radiation wouldn't be as obvious or as easy to track down.
But k/r^2 (different k) is a whole different beast. It’s infinitely worse at zero distance!
Of course, the radioactive source itself is not a point, and the human body isn’t a point either, so it’s not infinitely bad at zero range. Closer than a meter or so (very roughly the size of a body), it will merely concentrate the exposure over a smaller portion of the target and deliver a larger fraction of its total output to the target. The latter effect is a constant factor not vastly greater than 1 when comparing 1 meter to zero meters.
I believe the popular term is "not great, not terrible" ;)
Bit of contradiction in your statement here? If putting it against your torso would mean serious health effects in minutes, how would a critter "eat" it and get more than a few meters away?
I guess by minutes you mean tens of minutes?
Credentials: I've read about the demon core[0] and watched Chernobyl on HBO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents#Im...
They created a situation, were they applied cures that could not work to a patient that wanted to die. And they knew. Let those monsters not be hidden behind the cluelessness of the family.
Clinging to life at all costs, until there is nothing left, but a heap of hellish pain and machines, a good doctor will, should & must prevent this.
First of all, this part is not necessarily common knowledge but serious health effects does not mean incapacitated, and in the case of radiation it usually means effects that come on in the days/weeks following exposure, at least for humans. Animals can have different radio-sensitivity.
Regardless of that, a critter could easily travel a few hundred meters or more in a matter of minutes!! The search area then grows enormously. Total game changer.
a) by moving more than 1 meter per minute.
b) You should not read "serious health effects" as "instant death" where radiation is concerned. There is usually a lag time between radiation exposure and consequences. At low doses, this is "likely cancer, years later". But I think you'd still call that "serious health effects" if it happened to you.
At higher doses the consequences are "radiation sickness, days or hours later", which is plenty of time to disperse the source.
This thing has been missing for months. Their current detection strategy is to post a picture of a watch battery on Facebook and hope it just magically shows up.
We're a little deficient in technology here in Australia, especially in government, doubly so in state government.
It was lost in transit at most 20 days ago between January 11 and January 16.
It was logged as missing five days ago on January 25.
> Their current detection strategy is to post a picture of a watch battery on Facebook and hope it just magically shows up.
This is patently false.
> We're a little deficient in technology here in Australia
Perhaps surprisingly Australia is one of the world leaders in international radiometric mapping having expertise going back 50+ years having mapped multiple entire countries (Australia, Fiji, Mali, and a number of others).
See (for example): https://www.publish.csiro.au/EG/EG09025 (2009)
Perth is home to several radiometric mapping companies and capable airframes.
Where are you getting months from?
" ... the truck made the journey from 12th to 16th of January, the capsule was not discovered to be missing until the 25th of January."
It's been missing for 2 weeks, and known to be missing for 5 days.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_radioacti...
Also to say the tactics being used to find the capsule being limited to “post a picture of a watch batter on Facebook and hope it magically shows up” would be misleading.
1)The public alerts and posts are to keep the public informed as to what it is. This is for the very small chance someone does stumble onto it to limit the risk to the public.
2)They are searching the route with handheld detectors and soon detectors on vehicles using the trucks GPS data to map the route
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/29/new-t...
tldr: It's going to take a while
The search area is immense. People (even locals) fail to understand the incredibly vast distances. Sure, you can think up a comparison from your own context of a few hundred kms... but does your example have nothing, and I mean, literally nothing manmade but the road infrastructure itself in the proximity of the horizon for sometimes hundreds of kms? Few places do. In more remote places than this, say in the Kimberly, you might as well be on the moon. There's nothing out there to support you or resupply you; you always have to think about that ahead of time.
It's the middle of summer here, we are approaching our hottest month (February). Pavement, being a heat island, makes working alongside or on it a slow process. Exposure and heat stroke are real risks.
On the upside, the roads are sealed, and in relatively good condition and well designed when compared to say much of the US or the poorer parts of Europe but the odds that it falls into a crack or pothole will scale with the distance. A vehicle-mounted detector makes obvious sense but could be costly. However, as we know, especially at these temperatures, roads are slow moving rivers. It might even become embedded if it did indeed land on the surface. In which case it sounds like we may never find it.
Assuming it's most likely in the literal middle of nowhere. The risk of a member of the public coming into to direct physical contact would be highly unlikely. There are sections of road that haven't had human feet walk on them since they were last poured. But that introduces an interesting problem. What happens next time maintenance replace that section? Do crews need to be wary of digging it up, possibly aresolising it in the process? Maintenance is probably the most likely human contact scenario. Does every safety management plan now include the incredibly remote chance of finding it?
Sorry to nitpick, but I've driven across the USA many times and I've never had much to complain about with regards to our roads (outside of Ohio, fuck that state). Doubly so when comparing our road infrastructure to poorer countries.
They even have a saying - there are two seasons in Michigan, Winter and Road Construction.
The road is mostly sealed (Perth (State Capital City) -> Mt Newman (Big hub town in Pilbarra)) with a short tail end road of maybe 50 km to the site in question that'll be probably graded gravel - rough, bumpy, but essentially flat.
With five days gone it's already been flown and driven .. at this stage they're either looking at trace signal and indications the slug has gone well off route in a truck tyre OR doubling back to see if any site workers flying out pilfered it as a souvenir and flew out to Thailand for a holiday since.
Also: the Kimberley is not like the moon.
If it was knocked off the road, though, the question will be if it fell into a crack or other such place because then the radiation is somewhat shielded and it would take much more measuring time to identify it.
I suspect if a few passes with vehicle-mounted detectors don't find it then some drones with detectors traveling along the sides of the road would be a good next step. If a critter moved it or ate it then it's probably gone forever. At a distance of 1 meter the dose rate from that source is already not extremely hazardous unless a person were exposed for an extended period of time (like a full day or two). Getting closer, like putting it directly against your torso, would mean serious health effects in a matter of minutes.