![]() ![]() So they end up in an ionic bond, where they’re sort of latched together. Well, I say happy, but these two really can’t settle for a simple electron hand-off. So sodium will hand an electron over to chlorine, and everyone’s happy. That means that sodium will also have 11 electrons, and chlorine will also have 17 electrons.įor reasons that are beyond the scope of this post, sodium wants to lose an electron, and chlorine wants to gain an electron. Sodium has 11 protons and chlorine has 17. Only the protons tell you the electron count of an atom.īut atoms don’t always have the same number of protons and electrons. So if we add a neutron to a nucleus, we don’t add any more electrons. Notice something important: because neutrons have no electric charge, they don’t attract electrons. Squeeze another neutron into hydrogen’s nucleus and you get tritium, an even heavier isotope. But if you add a neutron, it becomes twice its weight-and it becomes deuterium.ĭeuterium is important to the study of Venus’s atmosphere, among other things. It’s a single electron orbiting a single proton. ![]() Hydrogen is the only element of the periodic table that normally has no neutrons at all. We’ll talk about that another time.Īny element can have different isotopes. Carbon-14, however, decays over time, and it’s used for something called radioactive dating (which has nothing to do with people dating one another). ![]() Carbon-12 has the same number of neutrons as protons, but in the case of carbon-13, we’ve added an extra neutron.īoth carbon-12 and carbon-13 are stable isotopes. All neutrons do is add a little weight to the atom. The only difference between these three is the number of neutrons. Notice how each one has 6 protons and 6 electrons? We would have to add or subtract a proton to get a different element. Here are three isotopes of carbon: carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14. So…where do the neutrons fit into all this? And hydrogen is the simplest of all-just a single electron orbiting a single proton. 7 protons and 7 electrons make a neutral nitrogen atom-the charges balance out.Īdd another proton to our nitrogen atom and we can attract an eighth electron, giving us an oxygen atom. Well, now we have 7 protons, so we have a nitrogen nucleus (the central hub made of protons and neutrons). What happens when we add a proton to a carbon atom? The number of neutrons doesn’t matter as much. Those 6 protons can hold onto 6 electrons since they have opposite electric charges. But if you said they all have different numbers of circles, you’re also right.Įvery atom is made of three basic parts: positively charged protons, neutral neutrons, and negatively charged electrons.Ī carbon atom has 6 protons and (often) 6 neutrons. If you said they all look like circles, you’re right. Well, let’s take a look at hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, the four most common elements in the solar system. So…what makes atoms different from one another? Because we understand the periodic table, we can understand the universe’s toolbox. With 100 different building blocks to combine in different ways, the universe has a whole arsenal of material at its disposal. A language that’s really complex and hard to understand if you’re not dedicated. English has only 26 letters, and yet those letters are all we need to put a whole language together. How do only one hundred atoms make up the whole universe? So far, over one hundred have been discovered. Every one of those colored boxes represents a different type of atom. But what are they?įirst of all, take a look at that periodic table up above. Which means there must be different types. Let’s talk about the different types of atoms first.Ītoms are the building blocks of the universe. (Spectra is plural for spectrum.) And that means…well…we’ll talk about it later. That just means the spectrums we get from stars, by the way. For now, though, I just want to address enough of the world of atoms to talk about stellar spectra. Never fear, I have every intention of doing so-later. To fully appreciate the ingenuity of the periodic table, I’d have to take you through a few chemistry lessons. If it does, you might recognize it as the periodic table of the elements-more often known as simply the “periodic table.” It’s an ingenious way to organize elements that has worked for scientists for quite some time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |