What is the size of a sulfur atom?

Answer 1

Fair question. The best answer is...there's more stuff in it. Oxygen has 8 Neutrons, 8 protons and 8 electrons.

Sulphur has 16 Neutrons, 16 protons and 8 electrons.

So the nucleus (Neutrons and protons) is bigger in sulphur. Just like a bunch of 32 balloons is bigger than a bunch of 16 balloons.

So that makes sense, but the big difference is in the electron configuration.

Oxygen has 8 electrons. 1s2, 2s2, 2p4.

Sulphur has 16 electrons. 1s2, 2s2, 2p6, 3s2, 3p4.

Whether that means much to you or not depends on your involvement in chemistry.

But we don't need to understand a lot of it. We can see sulphur's electrons fill up more orbitals than oxygen's because there are more electrons.. they can't all fit in the lower shells so you start expanding outward.

Sulphur uses the 3s and 3p orbital, which Oxygen doesn't have to. So sulphur's outermost electrons are further from the nucleus than oxygen's are.

As a final note, it's worth noticing that both Oxygen and Sulphur end with a p4 configuration...which is why they are chemically quite similar. They are analogues and in that way, comparing their other properties (such as atomic radius, here) is a pretty good thing to do.

Answer 2

Its radius is 103 picometers. Is that what you wanted?

Answer 3

sulfur