background radiation

Cultural  

1. Low-level radiation at the surface of the Earth that comes from cosmic rays and from small amounts of radioactive materials in rocks and the atmosphere.

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Example Sentences

Arno Penzias at Bell Labs won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering “cosmic microwave background radiation” from the Big Bang.

From The Wall Street Journal

Prof Krawczynski wants very thin, 0.8mm pieces of CZT for his telescopes because this helps to reduce the amount of background radiation they pick up, allowing for a clearer signal.

From BBC

Researchers put detectors deep underground to shield them from cosmic rays and background radiation.

From Science Daily

In recent years, the foundation has funded a new observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert to observe microwave background radiation from the big bang, and created the Flatiron Institute, which applies computational methods to scientific research.

From Science Magazine

The simulation is based on the same astrophysical assumptions about the ultraviolet background radiation produced by the first stars in the Universe, the gas cooling and heating, and the process of star formation.

From Science Daily