And it uses them: Nearly 10 million carbon compounds have been discovered, and scientists estimate that carbon is the keystone for 95 percent of known compounds, according to the website Chemistry Explained. (It can also bond stably to fewer atoms by forming double and triple bonds.) Carbon has four empty spaces in its outer shell, enabling it to bond to four other atoms. When atoms bond, they share electrons in their outermost shell. Carbon has two electron shells, with the first holding two electrons and the second holding four out of a possible eight spaces. Chemists conceive of these distances as shells, and define the properties of atoms by what is in each shell, according to the University of California, Davis. Atoms are arranged as a nucleus surrounded by an electron cloud, with electrons zinging around at different distances from the nucleus. It can also bond with up to four other atoms because of its electron arrangement. It can link to itself, forming long, resilient chains called polymers. (Image credit: Physical Review B, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.80.165404)Ĭarbon is a pattern maker.
While scientists sometimes conceptualize electrons spinning around an atom's nucleus in a defined shell, they actually fly around the nucleus at various distances this view of the carbon atom can be seen here in two electron cloud figures (bottom), showing the electrons in a single blob (the so-called s-orbital) and in a two-lobed blob or cloud (the p-orbital).
Ĭarbon occurs naturally as carbon-12, which makes up almost 99 percent of the carbon in the universe carbon-13, which makes up about 1 percent and carbon-14, which makes up a minuscule amount of overall carbon but is very important in dating organic objects. Carbon is also the key ingredient for most life on Earth the pigment that made the first tattoos and the basis for technological marvels such as graphene, which is a material stronger than steel and more flexible than rubber.
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