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Concept

Carbon-14

The image depicts a stylized representation of Carbon-14, featuring a central black circle with radiating lines and yellow accents, symbolizing its decay process.

A radioactive isotope of carbon produced when cosmic rays strike nitrogen-14 in the upper atmosphere. It enters the food chain through photosynthesis, then decays with a half-life of 5,730 years once the organism stops exchanging carbon with the air. Measuring the residual carbon-14 in a sample of wood, bone, or cloth dates it to within a few decades, out to about fifty thousand years before present.

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