The cooling towers of the power plant collapse between two thuds Gundremmingenin Bavaria. It is October 25, 2025 when the two 160-meter structures are made to shine in front of hundreds of people. A spectacular image, but what you don’t see is the meticulous work needed before a demolition is authorized: checking that walls, floors and structures do not retain radioactivity.
Today that work could become much faster thanks to one technology that comes from space.
From the stars to the buildings to be dismantled
Measuring radiation at nuclear sites has always been slow and expensive. Current semiconductor detectors cover a few square meters per hour and require continuous cooling to –200°C with liquid nitrogen. “If you imagine this for an entire room and then for an entire shed, you realize how inefficient and wasteful this method is,” he explained in a statement Thomas Siegert from the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburgexpert in space nuclear physics.
To overcome these limitations, his team decided to adopt a technology that has so far traveled hundreds of kilometers from Earth: scintillation measurement, used by satellites to identify radioactive elements in space.
How the new camera works
The joint project scintLaCHARMfinanced by the German Federal Ministry with almost two million euros, aims to develop cameras capable of identifying in a few hours all the points from which radioactivity comes from in a room.
The devices are composed of scintillation crystals: they glow when hit by gamma radiation. If multiple crystals fire sequentially, the direction and energy of the radiation can be precisely determined. “Particles of the same element always have the same energy, which means they can be clearly assigned,” Siegert noted.
The result is one three-dimensional map of the roomreconstructed thanks to the computing power of supercomputers, in which the contaminated areas light up like lit pixels. A decisive advantage for immediately distinguishing what needs to be dismantled from what can be treated as non-radioactive material.
AI as a filter
The camera software, developed together with the team of Uwe Gerd Oberlack from the University Mainzintegrates artificial intelligence systems. Objective: to recognize and filter the background noise caused by natural radiation present everywhere on Earth. “Its intensity varies depending on location and can interfere with measurements,” Siegert pointed out. AI allows us to highlight only what is truly contaminated, increasing the precision of the analyses.
John Tomsick, PI of NASA’s COSI mission, describes the practical applications resulting from gamma ray detectors. From PET scans to radiation monitoring to protecting astronauts, Compton imaging technology has a profound impact on our health and safety. pic.twitter.com/qLkAEGSYZs
— Space Sciences Laboratory (@ucbssl) October 9, 2025
The same groups also work on the gamma-ray space telescope AS from the NASAan experience that contributes to the development of sophisticated algorithms now applied to nuclear sites.
A supply chain of skills
The project involves five partners, including Brenk Systemplanung GmbHspecialized in the dismantling of nuclear power plants, e Hellma Materials GmbHresponsible for the production of crystals and camera prototypes under the guidance of Sibylle Petrak. They also participate Fraunhofer INTwith the metrology expert Sebastian Chmeland the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
Together they are bringing a piece of technology created to look into deep space into the corridors of power plants. And they demonstrate that what is needed to read the radioactive traces of a supernova can, with the right tools, also make the dismantling of plants on Earth safer.
