Question

In a carbon monoxide (co) molecule the carbon and oxygen atoms are separated by 0.112 nm.The distance of the centre of mass from the carbon atom is

Answer 1

Best Answer

So, in the case of CO2 the bonds are covalent and the molecule is linear and the O's are symmetric about the C. Therefore the center of mass would be at the C atom. However, you talked about carbon monoxide (CO) so which is it?

In the CO case let X = distance of C atom from center of mass and 0.112-X = distance of O atom from center of mass. Then you can use the formula below to get the Xcm.

mC*X = mO*(0.112-X) In this case X = 0.064 nm. Therefore the center of mass

for the CO molecule would be 0.064 nm from C atom.

Normally, the center of mass is calculated based on the distance (x) and mass (m) of objects from a reference point and is represented by the equation for a 2 mass system.

Xcm = (x1*m1 + x2*m2)/(m1 + m2)