Is plutonium luster

Answer 1

Generally, no, plutonium will not glow. Plutonium, element 94, is a radioactive and toxic metal of the trans-uranium group. And it is fissile. There are a few factors we need to consider before we close this question, but the general answer is no, it does not glow by itself. It is not photoluminescent, neither phosphorescent or luminescent. And let's be clear about "normally" here. If a dime-sized piece of refined plutonium was sitting in a tray in the physics lab and all the lights were out, it would not be visible. Without beating this one up, let's look at the other things we know about this most dangerous element as related to its giving off light, and let's set aside the isotopic considerations to keep it simple. Plutonium will spontaneously fission if a critical mass is brought together. This would cause it to emit visible light (and a whole bunch of other electromagnetic energy and radioactive particles). If you took two pieces the size of, say, cubes of butter and slammed them together (and this is so terrible that it is unthinkable), there would be a big flash of light and the two pieces would force themselves away from each other. There's your light. Oh, and you'd die within the month of radiation sickness (or, if you prefer, radiation poisoning). Our dime-sized piece is not big enough to reach critical mass. Another property associated with plutonium is that if we put together a subcritical mass of it, but a sufficient amount, it will, because of its radioactive nature, begin to glow and emit black body radiation. It is radioactively decaying and giving off heat in the process, and light will be emitted if the quantity of sufficient. This property of plutonium makes it useful as a long-term power source in a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. A sufficiently large quantiy, like a pellet, of plutonium (but below a critical mass of it) will glow red hot due purely to radioactive decay within the pellet. Our dime-sized piece is not big enough to be observed glowing in optical wavelengths. Lastly, powdered plutonium is pyrophoric. It will react with air and burn "by itself" and emit light. Powdered (finely divided) plutonium must be kept in an inert gas atmosphere. Our dime-sized piece is a solid chunk of the metal, and it will not generally be subject to pyrophoricity like this. Links are provided to related Wikipedia articles.

Answer 2

The fresh surface of the metal is silvery white but plutonium is easily oxydable and the surface become near black.