Answer
Marie Curie decided to study uranic rays for her doctoral thesis. Her first task was to determine whether any other substances besides uranium emitted these rays. In her search, Curie discovered two new elements, both of which also emitted uranic rays. Curie named one of her newly discovered elements polonium, after her home country of Poland
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. The other element she named radium, because of its high level of radioactivity. Radium is so radioactive that it generally glows in the dark and emits significant amounts of heat. Since it was clear that these rays were not unique to uranium, Curie changed the named of uranic rays to radioactivity.
