Question: What is an atom? And what is a Quarks? What is a Aluminium?

Rebecca Williams answered on 26 Jun 2014:

Hi gabriela,

Atoms are the building blocks of the universe. Everything is made of them. You, me, your computer, your lunch, the Earth and the stars. There are different atoms – these are the different chemical elements like oxygen and helium. Aluminium is a type of atom. The element aluminium is a soft, ductile metal in its purest form.

Atoms are so small they can’t be seen. Atoms have a nucleus, and whizzing around the nucleus are electrons. Inside the nucleus are protons and neutrons. An atom looks a bit like this:

Protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. There are 3 quarks in a proton and 3 quarks in a neutron. There are different kinds of quarks, some of them have boring names (up quarks, down quarks, bottom quarks, and top quarks) but there are quarks called strange quarks and charm quarks!

Quarks first came into being right after the Big Bang. They started teaming up with each other to build protons and neutrons and then these teamed up with electrons to make atoms. And well, atoms teamed up together to eventually build everything you see around you!