Welcome to the Community College of the Air Force (CCAF). Our college is a federally-chartered degree-granting institution that serves the United States Air Force's enlisted total force.
Isotopes of an element have nuclei with the same number of protons (the same atomic number) but different numbers of neutrons. Therefore, isotopes have different mass numbers, which give the total number of nucleons-the number of protons plus neutrons.
There are over 1,000 known radioactive isotopes of elements in the periodic table. There are many applications of radioactive isotopes in various fields. In this lesson, we will learn all about radioactive isotopes and their uses. Before we go into discussing radioactive isotopes, let's recall what an isotope is. Let's look at the picture of an atom below. It has a nucleus made up of protons and neutrons, with electrons around the nucleus. All the atoms of an element have the same number of protons, but the number of their neutrons can differ.