A district court in Varanasi allowed a petition seeking carbon dating of the structure inside the Gyanvapi mosque that the Hindu side has claimed is a ‘Shivling’.
Carbon dating is a widely-used method applied to establish the age of material or things.
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.
Carbon-14 is radioactive and reduces to one-half of itself in about 5,730 years. This is what is known as its ‘half-life’.
Because plants and animals get their carbon from the atmosphere, they too acquire carbon-12 and carbon-14 isotopes in roughly the same proportion as is available in the atmosphere.
So, after a plant or animal dies, the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the body, or its remains, begins to change.
This change can be measured and can be used to deduce the approximate time when the organism died.
Carbon Dating can measure the life of objects up to 50,000 years old.