= Caesium-137
{title2=radioactive}
{wiki}
Highly <radioactive> <isotope> of <caesium> with <half-life> of 30.17 <year>[y]. Produced from the <nuclear fission> of <uranium>, TODO exact reaction, not found in nature.
The <fucked> thing about this byproduct is that it is in the same chemical family as <sodium>, and therefore forms a salt that looks like regular <sodium chloride>[table salt], and dissolves in water and therefore easily enters your body and sticks to things.
Another problem is that its <half-life> is long enough that it doesn't lose radioactivity very quickly compared to the life of a human person, although it is short enough to make it highly toxic, making it a terrible pollutant when released.
This is why for example in the <goiânia accident> a girl ended up ingesting Caesium-137 after eating an egg after touching the Caesium with her hands.
\Image[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Cs-137-decay.svg]
{title=<caesium-137> decay scheme}