Which atomic model describes the atom as having a tiny, dense nucleus surrounded by electrons?

Which atomic model describes the atom as having a tiny, dense nucleus surrounded by electrons?

• A. Dalton's solid sphere model
• B. Thomson's plum pudding model
• C. Bohr's planetary model
• D. Rutherford's nuclear model

Answer: (D)

Atoms have a tiny, dense nucleus at the center with electrons surrounding it. Rutherford's nuclear model describes this exact arrangement: a very small, massive center where the positive charge resides, and electrons orbiting around it in mostly empty space. This picture came from the gold foil experiment, which showed that most of the atom passes through undeflected, indicating most of the atom is empty space, with a tiny region containing the mass and positive charge responsible for deflecting some particles. Earlier ideas didn’t include a dense central region: the solid-sphere model treats the atom as featureless, the plum pudding model has a diffuse positive charge with embedded electrons, and while Bohr's model keeps a nucleus, it emphasizes electrons in fixed orbits rather than describing a dense central core.

Atoms have a tiny, dense nucleus at the center with electrons surrounding it. Rutherford's nuclear model describes this exact arrangement: a very small, massive center where the positive charge resides, and electrons orbiting around it in mostly empty space. This picture came from the gold foil experiment, which showed that most of the atom passes through undeflected, indicating most of the atom is empty space, with a tiny region containing the mass and positive charge responsible for deflecting some particles. Earlier ideas didn’t include a dense central region: the solid-sphere model treats the atom as featureless, the plum pudding model has a diffuse positive charge with embedded electrons, and while Bohr's model keeps a nucleus, it emphasizes electrons in fixed orbits rather than describing a dense central core.