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.

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