re: Air Force’s mysterious X-37B space plane returns to Earth

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The only way gamma radiation would be emitted from the craft is there would have to be contamination from radioactive isotopes that would give off the radiation. Gamma radiation is like highly energized light and itself cannot contaminate anything. The gamma rays pass straight through the craft except where it is either absorbed or scattered which is the Compton Effect. The craft can pick up radioactive nuclei floating through space that will give off gamma radiation. The source of gamma radiation is from the breakdown of unstable atom’s nucleus where as x-rays are generated when electrons are removed from their obital shells. The only difference in the two is their origins and that gamma rays can be much more energetic except that there are lower power Gamma rays and higher power X-rays that can share the same spot on the electromagnetic spectrum and have the same energy levels. In order for alpha and beta particles to be present at all, a radioactive nuclei would have to be giving off these particles which each has mass unlike gamma rays. Beta and alpha particlulate ionizing radiation would have to be originating from contamination picked up that was floating in space as space dust.

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