• Question: how many atoms are in a layer of skin

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      Asked by Smurfette to Aoife, Brian, Conor, Louise, Matthew on 15 Nov 2016.
      • Photo: Louise Mc Grath

        Louise Mc Grath answered on 15 Nov 2016:

        Hi Smurfette,

        I am not sure how many are in 1 layer of skin but according a study from Washington University, there are approximately 100 trillion atoms in 1 human cell.
        There are approximately 100 trillion cells in the entire human body, meaning that 10 octillion atoms, or a 1 followed by 28 zeros (10000000000000000000000000000) make up each person.

        I hope I put 28 zeros there!

      • Photo: Matthew Kitching

        Matthew Kitching answered on 15 Nov 2016:

        Hi Smurfette!

        Good question!

        soooooo it depends what you mean by a layer of skin. so lets do some sciency number things.

        An atom is about 0.1 – 0.5 nm across!
        The diameter of skin cell is about 30 micrometers,

        So if we stacked atoms end on end – we would need about 300000 atoms to span the diameter of a single cell!

        Hope that answers your question? let me know if you want to know more 🙂

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