Yesterday, we looked at the bonding in hydrogen, which is covalent. Hydrogen has one electron. It likes to have two electrons so it shares an electron with another hydrogen atom, forming a hydrogen molecule H₂. Oxygen(O₂) has the same sharing of electrons in a slightly more complicated way, which we will look at next week, in addition to ionic bonds.

We also saw that atoms contain 3 particles – neutral neutrons and positive protons in the nucleus, and negative electrons in shells moving around the nucleus. Between the electron shells and the nucleus is empty space - in fact most of an atom is in fact empty space!

An animation of the covalent bonding in chlorine