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Why in the News?
Recently, a district court in Varanasi allowed a petition seeking carbon dating of the structure inside the Gyanvapi mosque.
Key Points:
What is Carbon Dating?
- Carbon dating is a widely-used method applied to establish the age of organic material.
- Living things have carbon in them in various forms.
- The dating method makes use of the fact that a particular isotope of carbon called C-14, with an atomic mass of 14, is radioactive, and decays at a rate that is well known.
What about non-living things?
- Carbon dating cannot be applied in all circumstances. Specifically, it cannot be used to determine the age of non-living things, like rocks, for example.
- Also, the age of things that are more than 40,000-50,000 years cannot be arrived at through carbon dating.
