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.