If you add or subtract a proton from the nucleus, you create a new element. If you add or subtract a neutron from the nucleus, you create a new isotope of the same element you started with. In a neutral atom, the number of positively charged protons in the nucleus is equal to the number of orbiting electrons.

Adding or removing protons from the nucleus changes the charge of the nucleus and changes that atom’s atomic number. So, adding or removing protons from the nucleus changes what element that atom is!

lead element

99.9999999%

Particles are, by their very nature, attracted to particles with an opposite charge, and they repel other similarly charged particles. This prevents electrons from ever coming in direct contact (in an atomic sense and literal sense). Their wave packets, on the other hand, can overlap, but never touch.

If we lost all the dead space inside our atoms, we would each be able to fit into a particle of dust, and the entire human species would fit into the volume of a sugar cube. …

Space is not empty. A point in outer space is filled with gas, dust, a wind of charged particles from the stars, light from stars, cosmic rays, radiation left over from the Big Bang, gravity, electric and magnetic fields, and neutrinos from nuclear reactions.

Assuming that dark energy continues to make the universe expand at an accelerating rate, in about 150 billion years all galaxies outside the Local Supercluster will pass behind the cosmological horizon.

In a video shared by Eau de Space, NASA astronaut Tony Antonelli says space smells “strong and unique,” unlike anything he has ever smelled on Earth. According to Eau de Space, others have described the smell as “seared steak, raspberries, and rum,” smokey and bitter.