🎈 Fun Fact: Did you know the discovery of beta decay was key to understanding that not everything in the atomic world is as it seems? This decay process led to the discovery of neutrinos, which are ghostly particles that hardly interact with anything!

There are 3 main types

• Beta-minus (β−) decay: Emitting an electron.
• Beta-plus (β+) decay: Emitting a positron.
• Electron capture: Instead of emitting, the nucleus "absorbs" an electron.

• What happens? A neutron in the nucleus becomes a proton and an electron.
• Why does it happen? If there are too many neutrons compared to protons, the nucleus will want to get rid of a neutron and replace it with a proton.

🍎 Real-world analogy: Imagine you have too many apples and not enough oranges. To make it balanced, you exchange an apple for an orange!

• Why does the electron leave? Keeping an electron inside the tiny nucleus would need a lot of energy, and this isn’t possible. So, the electron has to leave.

• What else is emitted? An electron antineutrino (symbol: ν̅e).

Example:
Thorium (Th) undergoing beta-minus decay turns into Protactinium (Pa).
231_{90}Th → 231_{91}Pa + 0_{-1}β + ν̅e

📝 Note: The "bar" over the ν means it's an antiparticle. Also, there's a range of energy values for the emitted beta particle, which is unique to this type of decay.