Magnesium atom is smaller than the sodium atom. Explain.
Answers
Answer:
It's basically based on the various trends of Atomic Radius in Periodic Table.
According to the trend, as we go from left to right in the Periodic Table, atomic radius generally decreases. So from Na to Mg as we go the atomic radius decreases. This is due to the fact that effective nuclear charge increases gradually in a period i.e., electron cloud is attracted more strongly towards nucleus as the effective nuclear charge becomes more and more as we move across a period.
Hope it helps.
The magnesium and the sodium atom have the same outermost orbit but number of electrons are different. the magnesium atom having the largest number of electrons in the outermost orbit is smaller than the soudim atom having fewer number electronic in the same outermost orbit.this is because the largest number of of e-in the outermost orbit has more attractions towards the nuclear resulting in it pulling the electronic towards the nuclear. hence, the magnesium atom is smaller than the sodium atom.