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Lesson: Chapter 3 — The Structure of Matter

3.1. The planetary model of the atom 1 of 5

Electrons around a nucleus

Rutherford's picture of the atom has a name that tells you what it looks like: the planetary model.

The electrons move around the positively charged nucleus at the centre — much as the planets move around the sun.

Figure to be added

Figure 3.1: the planetary model. A small positive nucleus at the centre, with electrons moving along paths around it, drawn the way planets are drawn orbiting the sun.

Why don't the electrons fall in?

It is a fair question. The nucleus is positive and the electrons are negative, so the nucleus attracts them. Why does that pull not simply drag every electron into the centre?

The answer is speed

The electrons are moving around the nucleus extremely fast. The attraction holds them in their paths rather than pulling them down, and so they never fall onto the nucleus.

Bohr sharpens the picture

Niels Bohr took Rutherford's model further. The electrons, he said, do not move just anywhere around the nucleus: they move in definite paths, called orbits.

That word "definite" is the important one, and the next page follows it where it leads.