Question

How to identify curium mass number?

Answer 1

Here's how you can do that.

Explanation:

You can identify the mass number of the most abundant isotope of curium by using the element's atomic mass.

Grab a Periodic Table and look for curium, `"Cm"`.

Now, in order to find the mass number of the most abundant isotope of curium, you need to take the atomic mass, which is added at the bottom of the element cell

`247.070`

and round it to the nearest whole number.

You will end up with

`247.070 ~~ 247`

This means that the most abundant isotope of curium, curium-247, has a mass number equal to `247`, which means that it contains `247` protons and neutrons inside its nucleus.

Since curium has an atomic number equal to `96`, i.e. it contains `96` protons inside its nucleus, you can say that

`"96 protons " + " ? neutrons" = 247`

This tells you that curium-247 contains

`"no. of neutrons" = 247 - 96 = 151`

neutrons inside its nucleus.