In what was initially a frightening and then very intriguing experience, Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have concluded that peeling out an ordinary scotch tape in vacuum can generate X-rays intense enough to create an x-ray image of one of the scientist’s hands! While the initial fears were obviously about how this would affect the use of scotch tape in daily lives and if we would be affected by them, it was later confirmed that the intense x-ray production occurred only when the tape was used in vacuum.

Known as triboluminescence, this kind of phenomenon generally takes place when one causes a friction between crystal surfaces. While exactly why this is exaggerated in vacuum to produce x-rays of such high intensity is unknown for now. The scientists at the university are still working on how this could impact the field of x-ray as the basic cause of the effect is not yet known in detail.

One of the exciting and yet highly disturbing reports from the research is the claim that the high charge density generated by peeling the tape could be great enough to trigger nuclear fusion. If that is true, then we could see the unraveling of a whole new nuclear race towards nothing but destruction. For now though, nuclear fusion experts say that this would be highly impossible. Now who ever thought that just using scotch tape was this complicated… Phew!

Via: nature / zamazing