The Atom

Atoms are the basic units of any element.

Atoms are made up of other smaller things, though, called subatomic particles. There are three main types of subatomic particles and many other minor particles.

The three major particles in any atom are protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons are big (compared to the others) and form a cluster in the middle called the nucleus. All the protons have a positive charge and the neutrons have no charge.

The electrons are about 1/1000 as big as the protons and neutrons, but have the opposite charge of the proton. Their charge is the same strength as the proton’s charge, except electrons are negative. Electrons orbit outside the nucleus really fast and are really far away when you compare it to the size of everything in the atom.

There are over 110 elements. Most of them happen naturally, some of them were created by people. Each element represents all the atoms that have a certain number of protons.