Do radioactive things glow?

In a lot of depictions of radioactive materials, there is a green glow that is emitted. This is so common the green glow itself is associated with radioactivity. Does this green glow exist, and if so, where does it come from?

This animated plutonium rod should not be confused with the inanimate carbon rod, which does not glow.

Radioactive materials such as uranium and plutonium do not, by themselves, glow. Pure uranium looks like a boring grey metal, and plutonium is slightly shinier. The glow associated with radioactivity originates from materials containing radioactive isotopes, but is due to electronic rather than nuclear transitions, similar to how certain materials glow under a blacklight. These materials can glow without an external power supply, because the atomic transitions can be excited by the radioactive decay. This is known as radioluminescence.

Radioluminescent materials were more common in the early 20th century, before it was understood how incredibly bad for you extended radiation exposure is. Clock faces often had dials painted with radium, so that they could be read in the dark. The luminescence was actually produced by zinc sulphide, which was activated to an excited state by the radium decay. Radioluminescent watches can still be purchased, but they use the safer tritium as an isotope.

Another common product was uranium glass, which was marketed as vaseline glass, apparently because it was the same colour as petroleum jelly was at the time. Once again, it is not the uranium producing the light, but the transitions excited by its decay.

Uranium glass glowing green.. The blacklight in the background is the main source of illumination.

Perhaps the most common radioactive green movie trope is plutonium, but plutonium is not used in radioluminescent compounds. It can appear to glow red, but that is due to a chemical reaction with oxygen (aka burning) rather than anything associated with radioactivity.

All of these heavy-element radioluminescent materials rely on alpha-decaying isotopes. Alpha particles tend to move slowly (compared to light) and are comparatively safe; alpha radiation can essentially be blocked by clothes, but if you inhale a piece of alpha-emitting dust you can be in serious trouble. The main scenario where radioactivity does produce a glow is not from alpha decay but beta decay*, typically in nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors are often kept underwater, for cooling and for neutron shielding, and when emitted beta particles (electrons) exceed the speed of visible light in water, they emit Cerenkov radiation, which manifests itself as a blue glow (This is analogous to a sonic boom when something exceeds the speed of sound).

Cerenkov radiation from a nuclear reactor.

So just to summarize, radioactive materials do not emit light just because they are radioactive, but essentially act as a power source to make other things glow. Except nuclear reactors, those actually glow.

*Electrons are 1/7000th the mass of alpha particles, making them much faster at the same energy.