Carbon has three naturally occurring isotopes: carbon-12 constitutes 98.89 percent of all carbon atoms and serves as the standard for the atomic mass scale; carbon-13 is the only magnetic isotope, which makes it very important for structural studies of compounds containing carbon. Carbon-14 is produced by cosmic ray bombardment of nitrogen. It is radioactive with a half-life of 5,760 years. The amount of carbon-14 remaining in historical artifacts can be used to estimate their age.
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