What is the size of the atomic nucleus compared to an atom?
We know that the nucleus of an atom contains the nucleons, the protons and neutrons that make up that atom. This is almost all the mass of the atom, and these protons and neutrons are bound very tightly. That translates into the fact that the nucleus takes up almost none of the volume that the atom as a whole occupies. The orbiting electrons that are in the electron cloud actually define the volume of the atom. And that atom’s volume is really large compared to that of the nucleus. We might say that the nucleus contains almost all of the mass of the atom, and takes up almost none of its volume. The difference between the size of the atomic nucleus and the size of the whole atom is that dramatic.
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