TITLE: Is it safe to keep uranium ore in my house?
QUESTION [27 upvotes]: I bought 5.6 gr of uranium ore.
The measured gamma radiation is 1µSv/h, we didn't have the instruments to measure alpha/beta radiation.
EDIT:
The gamma radiation was measured at 1cm distance. I also updated the unit of measurement as I had only written 1µSv instead of 1µSv/h.

REPLY [37 votes]: Assuming the measurement is 1µSv per hour, looking at XKCD's handy radiation chart suggests that it is equivalent to eating 10 bananas or having an arm X-ray. If you were staying around the ore it would be equivalent to living in a place like the Colorado plateau with higher than normal background radiation. So that is not much of a problem.
What would worry me more is the alpha and beta radiation. Alpha is short-range, so as long as you don't eat, inject or inhale the ore things are fine. The beta radiation might be more damaging, but as this answer shows, the risk is pretty minuscule even for more active samples than yours. Finally, there is the issue of radon production. This again seems to be a microscopic factor, although sleeping in the same room as the ore might be unnecessary. See also this page for way more information than you need.
Overall, the ore is as safe as any other heavy metal ore.
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