text: Polonium-210 was used to kill Russian dissident and ex-FSB officer Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006, and was suspected as a possible cause of Yasser Arafat's death, following exhumation and analysis of his corpse in 2012–2013. The radioisotope may also have been used to kill Yuri Shchekochikhin, Lecha Islamov and Roman Tsepov.
  Decay properties
  210Po is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days; it decays directly to stable 206Pb. The majority of the time, 210Po decays by emission of an alpha particle only, not by emission of an alpha particle and a gamma ray; about one in 100,000 decays results in the emission of a gamma ray.
  This low gamma ray production rate makes it more difficult to find and identify this isotope. Rather than gamma ray spectroscopy, alpha spectroscopy is the best method of measuring this isotope.
  Owing to its much shorter half-life, a milligram of 210Po emits as many alpha particles per second as 5 grams of 226Ra. A few curies of 210Po emit a blue glow caused by excitation of surrounding air.
  210Po occurs in minute amounts in nature, where it is the penultimate isotope in the uranium series decay chain. It is generated via beta decay from 210Pb and 210Bi.