• Question: How many atoms in a molecule

    Asked by anon-351334 on 30 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 30 Mar 2023:

      It depends on the size of the molecule. The smallest molecules contain 2 atoms… these are diatomic molecules like oxygen (O2), nitrogen (N2) and the likes. The largest, well some solids like diamond are effectively large single molecules but a gram of diamond will contain around 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 carbon atoms.

    • Photo: Graeme Dykes

      Graeme Dykes answered on 30 Mar 2023:

      A molecule can be any size above 2 atoms.
      Ca. 36.5g of sodium chloride contains 1.2x 10^24 atoms.
      DNA is much bigger still

    • Photo: Jade Markham

      Jade Markham answered on 31 Mar 2023:

      Minimum 2, then unlimited really

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