What Matter Is Made Of - Vocabulary

element


a basic building block of matter; a pure substance that cannot be broken down into anything simpler

compound

a chemical combination of two or more elements into a single substance

atom

the smallest unit of an element that still has the properties of the element

proton

a particle with a positive charge in the nucleus of an atom

neutron

an uncharged particle in the nucleus of an atom

electron

a particle with a negative charge moving around the nucleus of an atom

nucleus

the dense center part of an atom

molecule

a group of more than one atom joined together that acts like a single particule