Question

How many neutrons are in neon?

Answer 1

Hint Neon is a chemical element represented by the symbol $Ne$. It is colorless, odorless inert monatomic gas under standard conditions and it has less density as compared to air at almost 2/3rd density of air. It is chemically inert in nature.

Complete Step by step solution:
Neutrons are a subatomic particle represented by the symbol $n$ or $n{}^{\circ }$ these contain no charge i.e. neutral in nature and the mass of the neutron is slightly greater than the mass of the proton. To calculate the number of neutrons we first have to calculate the number of protons as the number of neutrons are calculated by subtracting the number of protons from the mass number of the given atom.
Number of protons in an atom is always equal to the atomic number of that atom. In neon the atomic number is given by 10 so we can say that the number of protons in neon is 10 and mass number of any atom is almost double of the atomic number of that substance, mass number of neon is 20.
Therefore number of neutrons = Mass number of neon – number of protons
$=20-10$ i.e. 10
Hence the number of neutrons in neon is 10.
Number of neutrons also depends on the isotopes, different isotopes have different numbers of neutrons.

Note: An atom consists of a nucleus and nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons where protons are positively charged ions and neutrons are those ions which do not contain any charge i.e. neutral in nature and electrons are revolving around the nucleus and electrons are negatively charged ions.