The New Childrens Encyclopedia

Mighty atoms

Everything is made up of atoms. These incredibly

small particles are the building blocks of all matter,

from the rocks that make up our Earth, and the

animals, plants, and other creatures that live on it,

to the planets and stars in distant galaxies.

LOOKING AT ATOMS

Atoms are too small to see. In fact, they are much

smaller than the wavelengths of visible light, so

a microscope is not much use either. Instead,

scientists “see” atoms by taking pictures of the

electric fields around these tiny particles.

 ATOMS Just as the images

on a computer monitor consist

of tiny dots of light called

pixels, objects in the real world

are made of tiny dots of matter

called atoms.

ELECTRON

NUCLEUS

PROTON

INSIDE ATOMS

Atoms may be small, but they

contain even smaller particles.

Protons and neutrons cluster

together in the nucleus at

the center of the atom.

Electrons move in a

cloud that surrounds

the nucleus. Strong

electrical forces

hold these small

particles together

inside atoms.

SCIENCE

O
 The period at the end of this sentence

covers around 250 billion atoms.

O
 Elements are made up of atoms that

each have the same number of protons.

O
 Protons and neutrons consist of even

smaller particles called quarks.

FAST FACTS

222

NEUTRON

(c) 2012 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.(c) 2012 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.