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X-ray is almost like a photograph that uses x-rays instead of light to take a picture of a part of your body. Let’s take an example of your hand. What we would do is take an x-ray generator, which means that it’s a machine that sends out x-rays, you put your hand between the x-ray generator and some sort of a film or a detector. Now that detector is going to see how much of the radiation has passed through the different parts of your hand. And then based on composition and density, some areas will block more of the x-rays and some will block less. That’s why, if you imagine an x-ray of a hand, you see the bones very prominently, because the bones are very dense and they’re made of calcium. And so that absorbs almost 100% of the x-rays. So you get a very bright signal where the bone is. Now, the air between your fingers has basically no stoppage of the radiation. So a hundred percent of the radiation gets transmitted where it’s just air. And then somewhere in a gray zone in between is the skin and muscles surrounding your bones, which is why you’ll see the hazy gray shadow of your flesh surrounding the bone on an x-ray.
