Question

What is atomic structure?

Answer 1

From the lower classes we are familiar with the term element and these elements are formed by the combination of number of atoms. By explaining the constituents present in the basic unit of matter will give the answer for this question.

Complete step-by-step answer: From the time we study the subject we are familiar with the terms atoms, molecules etc. Each element is made up of its own atoms.
We refer to atomic structure as explaining the structure of an atom. An atom consists of a nucleus and a number of electrons present around the nucleus. The nucleus will be positively charged whereas electrons will be negatively charged to maintain the stability of the atom.
More precisely we could explain that an atom consists of electrons, protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons are the constituents present in the nucleus of an atom.
The electrons are negatively charged species, whereas protons are positively charged species and the neutrons are charge less or neutral species they do not possess any charge. All the three charges have a mass value and the mass of protons and neutrons together gives the mass of the nucleus i.e. the atomic mass of the element.
And the number of electrons or protons will give the atomic number of the atom. The number of electrons will be equal to that of the number of protons in a neutral atom. But there are chances that the atom gains or loses its electrons to gain the extra stability by obtaining complete shell configuration.
For example Na atom has atomic number 11 hence it has 11 electrons, it loses one electrons to exists as $N{{a}^{+}}$, which has 10 electrons in them configuration of a noble gas and hence $N{{a}^{+}}$ will have extra stability because of its completely filled electronic configuration.

Note: Different elements have different atoms and the different atoms will have different numbers of protons, electrons and neutrons which makes them unique in their way.
From earlier times many scientists have worked on the atomic structure and there are many atomic structures proposed by great scientists and some of the atomic models which had made a big blow in the chemistry field are:
-Dalton's atomic model
-Thomson model of atom or watermelon model or plum pudding model of atom
-Rutherford model of atom
-Bohr's atomic structure
-Quantum mechanical model of atom.