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RADIUM DIAL GAUGES
Ca 1920s – mid
1960s
Radium mixed with zinc sulfide was used to make the
dials of aircraft gauges glow in the dark. Many WWII era aircraft
gauges utilized this luminous paint. Most of those gauges no
longer glow in the dark, not because the radium has decayed (its half
life is 1600 years), but because the radioactivity has caused the zinc
sulfide to deteriorate. |