Radio-Carbon dating is a method for determining the age of organic materials like fossils by measuring the amount of carbon-14 in them. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon that’s produced in the atmosphere by the interaction of carbon isotopes with solar radiation and free neutrons. When an organism dies, it stops absorbing carbon and the carbon-14 in its body begins to decay into other atoms over time. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, which means that half of its carbon-14 atoms decay into nitrogen atoms over that period. Scientists can estimate how long an organism has been dead by measuring the amount of carbon-14 remaining in its remains relative to the amount of carbon-12.
