An atom is a tiny, tiny building block. Everything around you is made of atoms: your shoes, the water you drink, the air you breathe, even you!
They’re so small that you can’t see them, not even with a regular magnifying glass. If you lined up about a million atoms side by side, they would still be thinner than a single strand of your hair.
What’s inside an atom?
Think of an atom like a tiny solar system:
- In the middle is a heavy ball called the nucleus, like the sun. It’s made of even tinier bits called protons and neutrons.
- Zooming around it are super-light particles called electrons, a bit like planets orbiting the sun.
Why are there so many different things?
There are different kinds of atoms, like different kinds of LEGO bricks. Gold is made of gold atoms. The air you breathe has oxygen atoms. When atoms join together in different ways, they make all the different things in the world, just like you can build a car, a castle or a spaceship from the same pile of LEGO.
A fun fact: The atoms in your body are very, very old. Many of them were made inside stars billions of years ago. So in a way, you’re made of star dust!