Science Facts Thursday: The Atomic Structure

Don't trust atoms, they make up everything!

It's science facts Thursday! A slightly delayed one, since we have been enjoying a little break and have been on lots of mini adventures, including a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry to see an exhibition on brains! More on that another time..

..This week we look at the structure of an atom. What is an atom? Everything is made up of atoms, everything, including your breakfast cereal to the smell of roses. They are super tiny too, so super tiny that in a single grain of sand there is close to 78 quintillion! (That's 78, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000)

So what does an atom look like?

Not to scale.

The diagram above shows the structure of an atom. We used Carbon as an example. Carbon has 6 protons,  6 neutrons and 6 electrons with 2 shells.
The number of shells an atom has depends on the number of electrons.

This is where is gets complex. There are things called isotopes. These are variations of atoms of an element. For example, the diagram above shows a regular carbon atom, an isotope of carbon is 'carbon 14' which has two extra neutrons! This carbon atom is unstable and is radioactive! Think of it as the naughty identical twin.

Protons and Neutrons are best buds, and hang out in the nucleus.

The positive charge of the protons and the negative charge of the electrons in an atom keep everything stuck together by attracting one another. They also cancel out the electrical charge making an atom neutral .

Next week we look at the Kinetic Theory! In the meantime enjoy this song about atoms. ♥