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Drumroll please! *Drrrrrrr*
Hello and welcome to the show! This is JasmineK, with her FIRST SCIENCE ARTICLE
EVER (how did the Editor let me get away with this??? LOL)
Ok, now on to the science. Today's topics is -- IONS! Yes! Ions! Those things
that... you first heard of when you read Deriko's article about the new Ion
Engine Game?!? BINGO, you've won a million dollars and a goat!!! Haha, just kidding.
All right, so what is an ion, really? Basically, it's an atom. Only, that's not
exactly it. LOL, this is my first show, you know... but let me explain.
As you may know, atoms are extremely tiny things that make up all matter. I'm
made of atoms. You're made of atoms. Your computer screen is made of atoms. The
air you're breathing right now is made of atoms. Trillions of them.Atoms may be
tiny, but they are very complex. In the middle, they each have a nucleus. The
nucleus contains some even tinier things called protons and neutrons. And
outside of the nucleus, these even tinier things called electrons are buzzing
around in the electron shell. The shell has different layers. The first layer is
very small, it can only hold up to two electrons. So if there's more than two electrons,
the atom adds another layer, which holds up to eight electrons. And then the next
holds 16. And so on.
So, each atom has protons, neutrons and electrons. But different elements have
different numbers of these parts. That's why oxygen is different from, say, gold (too
bad, eh?). However, no matter the number, all protons are positively charged and
all electrons are negatively charged. (Well, unless you get into some really
complicated physics, which I'm not going to get into here.) Luckily, atoms
usually have the same number of
electrons as protons. So the positive and negative charges cancel each other
out; the atom is neutral.
However, atoms are fickle things, hard to please. They want to have exactly
eight electrons in the outermost layer of their electron shell. Don't ask me
why... puh-lease, this isn't AP Chemistry! Just remember, for an atom, eight is
happiness. So to test this, let's say you have an atom of fluorine. Flourine has nine
protons and nine electrons. It's neutral. For now. Where do
those nine electrons go? Two
fit in the first layer, and the other seven go in the second layer. "But wait!"
the atom screams. "I WANT EIGHT ELECTRONS IN THAT LAYER!" It needs
another electron! How's it going to get one? It's going to STEAL one. Yes,
that's right. It will steal. But maybe it can find an atom that's willing to
donate... hmm... a sodium atom, perhaps? Sodium atoms have 11 electrons. Two go in the
first layer. Eight go in the next layer. And then there's one left over in the
third layer. Sodium really doesn't want that extra electron. If it wasn't there,
it could get rid of that third layer and have eight in the outermost layer! So
sodium and fluorine get together and have a very special hug... er, bond. An IONIC
bond, to be exact. Sodium gives fluorine an atom. Now they both have eight atoms
in their outermost layer! Yay! *Happiness*
But we forgot one thing. Fluorine used to be neutral... it had nine protons and
nine electrons. But now it just got another electron. So it has more
negative charge than positive. THE ATOM IS NOW NEGATIVELY CHARGED! And an atom
with a charge isn't an atom anymore... IT'S AN ION! Our fluorine atom has become
a negative fluorine ion!!!
And meanwhile, over in sodium-land, we've got a different problem. Sodium just
gave away an electron. Now it's got more protons than electrons, more positive
charge than negative charge. It's positive! It's a POSITIVE SODIUM ION!
But the two atoms were happy being ions and they lived happily ever after... THE
END. There you go, the SUPER-DUPER JASMINEK SCIENCE SHOW IS NOW OVER! But any
good show needs a good theme song. Hmm, maybe I should have done this at the
beginning. Oh well, better late than never! Here goes:
Here's the story... Of a lovely atom
It was a fluorine atom so you know
It had nine protons... and nine electrons
One too few for it
Here's the story... Of another atom
Except this one, was called Sodium
It had eleven protons... and eleven electrons
But had one too many
Till the one day when the fluorine met the sodium
And they knew that it was much more than a hunch.
That these two, would someday form an ionic bond
That's the way they both became charged ions
Charged ions, charged ions
That's the way they became charged ions.
*Doot doo doo doot doot -- doot doot!*
-JasmineK ;-)
*Humming*
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