Technology: Atoms Part 2

So I know I made a post about atoms earlier, but in class we did a little more on atoms so I felt the need to make a part 2. Since we will probably be learning a lot about atoms, I will write more posts about them accordingly. Today we focused on what atoms are made out of.

Atoms are made of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Protons have a positive charge, electrons have a negative charge, and neutrons have no electrical charge. Electrons fly above the nucleus in a cloud. The nucleus, the positively charged central core of an atom, consists of either 1 or more protons and, in most atoms, a certain amount of neutrons. These protons and neutrons provide the atom with its mass. Different types of atoms have a different number of protons. If you change the number of protons in an atom, it becomes a completely different type of atom. The number of protons in an atom also decide what place the atom has in the Periodic Table. For example, hydrogen, the first element, has 1 proton. On the other hand, the number of neutrons in an atom can be a little different from another atom with the same number of protons in it. For example, a nitrogen atom always has 7 protons, but can have 6, 7, 8 or more neutrons.

If you’re interested, here’s the video we watched in class. You can watch it for more information about atoms if you’d like.

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