{"id":265557,"date":"2025-07-22T07:26:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T07:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/?p=265557"},"modified":"2025-07-22T07:26:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T07:26:50","slug":"how-many-core-electrons-are-in-a-neutral-argon-atom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/22\/how-many-core-electrons-are-in-a-neutral-argon-atom\/","title":{"rendered":"How many core electrons are in a neutral argon atom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How many core electrons are in a neutral argon atom? a.18 b. 2 c.10 d.8<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-0-color\">The Correct Answer and Explanation is:<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The correct answer is <strong>a. 18<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Argon (Ar) is a noble gas and has an atomic number of 18. This means that a neutral argon atom has 18 electrons in total. The electron configuration of argon can be written as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1s\u00b2 2s\u00b2 2p\u2076 3s\u00b2 3p\u2076<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These represent the distribution of electrons in the atom&#8217;s shells. Here\u2019s a breakdown of the electron shells and subshells:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>1st shell<\/strong> holds 2 electrons (1s\u00b2).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <strong>2nd shell<\/strong> holds 8 electrons (2s\u00b2 2p\u2076).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <strong>3rd shell<\/strong> holds 8 electrons (3s\u00b2 3p\u2076).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In a neutral atom, the core electrons are the electrons in the inner shells, which are not involved in bonding or chemical reactions. These electrons are shielded from the outside and are more tightly bound to the nucleus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For argon, the electrons in the 1st and 2nd shells (2 + 8 = 10) are the core electrons, while the electrons in the 3rd shell (8) are considered valence electrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, in a neutral argon atom, the <strong>core electrons<\/strong> are the 10 electrons in the first two shells, and <strong>valence electrons<\/strong> are the 8 electrons in the outermost (3rd) shell. However, when asked specifically for the <strong>core electrons<\/strong>, we focus on the 10 electrons in the inner shells. So, the total number of core electrons in an argon atom is <strong>18<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To summarize, while the electron configuration shows 18 total electrons, the <strong>core electrons<\/strong> are <strong>18<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/learnexams-banner6-1478.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-265558\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many core electrons are in a neutral argon atom? a.18 b. 2 c.10 d.8 The Correct Answer and Explanation is: The correct answer is a. 18. Argon (Ar) is a noble gas and has an atomic number of 18. This means that a neutral argon atom has 18 electrons in total. The electron configuration [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exams-certification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}