Question

How does a molecular orbital differ from an atomic orbital?

Answer 1

As we know that an orbital is basically that region where the probability of electron finding is higher and we also know that the atoms possess their own electrons which rotates around the nucleus and when these orbitals overlap to form molecules, they are termed as molecular orbitals.

Complete step-by-step answer:
As we know that an atomic orbital is that region where the highest probability of finding an electron in an atom is maximum and it is formed by the electron cloud around the nucleus where the single nucleus is responsible for any effect in the electron cloud.

Whereas, a molecular orbital is that region where the highest possibility of finding an electron in a molecule is maximum and it is formed by the overlapping or combination of atomic orbitals that have almost the same energy.

But the molecular orbital differs from the atomic orbital in terms of their nucleus affecting the electron cloud and in case of molecular orbital two or more than two nuclei depending upon their number of atoms in a given molecule, affects the electron cloud unlike atomic orbital.

Moreover, there are two types of molecular orbitals unlike atomic orbitals and these are the bonding molecular orbitals and antibonding molecular orbitals where bonding orbitals possess the electrons in its ground state and anti-bonding molecular orbitals possess the electrons in their excited state.

Note: Always remember that the atomic orbital is the original state of finding an electron with highest chances and this probability of electron finding is generally expressed as ${\psi ^2}$ value. If the ${\psi ^2}$ is large, then the probability of finding the electron is also high and if it is low, the probability is also low.