Baryon facts for kids

Baryons are tiny building blocks of matter, like super small LEGO bricks! They are a type of subatomic particle made from an odd number of even smaller particles called quarks. Usually, baryons are made of three quarks.

The most famous baryons are protons and neutrons. These two particles make up almost all the visible stuff in the universe, including you, your friends, and everything around you! The other main part of an atom, electrons, are different; they are called leptons.

All quarks have a property called "spin," which is like a tiny internal rotation. For quarks, this spin is always 1/2. Because of this, all baryons end up having a spin of either 1/2 or 3/2. The spins of their quarks can sometimes cancel each other out.

Baryons with a spin of 1/2 are in their lowest energy state, which means they are usually stable. However, baryons with a spin of 3/2 are very unstable. They only exist for an incredibly short time, about 0.00000000000000000000001 seconds! After this tiny moment, they change into a more stable, lower-energy state by releasing tiny packets of energy called photons. These short-lived 3/2 spin baryons are known as "higher energy resonances."

All particles with a spin of 1/2 or 3/2 are called fermions. Fermions follow a special rule: no two fermions can be in the exact same place at the exact same time. This is why matter takes up space! There's another type of subatomic particle called a boson. Unlike fermions, many bosons (like photons) can exist in the same spot at the same time.

Baryons are one of two main types of hadrons. Hadrons are simply particles that are made of quarks. The other type of hadron is called a meson.

The word "baryon" comes from the ancient Greek word "barys," which means "heavy." This name was chosen because baryons were thought to be the heaviest particles known at the time.

What Are Quarks?

Quarks are fundamental particles, meaning we don't think they are made of anything smaller. There are six different types, or "flavors," of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. Protons and neutrons are made only from up and down quarks.

• A proton is made of two "up" quarks and one "down" quark.
• A neutron is made of one "up" quark and two "down" quarks.

These quarks are held together by a very strong force, carried by particles called gluons. This force is so strong that quarks are never found alone; they are always stuck together inside baryons or mesons.

Baryons in the Universe

Protons and neutrons are the most common baryons in the universe. They form the core, or nucleus, of every atom. Without them, atoms wouldn't exist, and neither would stars, planets, or life! Other, more exotic baryons exist, but they are usually very unstable and quickly decay into protons or neutrons. Scientists study these unstable baryons in special laboratories to understand more about the fundamental forces of nature.

See also

In Spanish: Barión para niños