Like in this picture[pic](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSCCadOhv2cxPQIYF5Uo6IOICOSAAIfFWboMg&usqp=CAU),
what is the thing at the top? Is it just space?
In: Physics
This picture is from [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EogdalfXF4c) from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There is an article describing it in detail [here](https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2009/03/26/atoms-in-action/). It is a video taken using an electron microscope, of a sheet of graphene (so a one-atom-thin layer of carbon atoms), as they punched a hole through it using a beam of electrons.
The rings taking up most of the image are the carbon atoms. The actual atoms are where the lines meet. [This is a colour, 3d render](https://newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2009/03/hole3d_1_sm.jpg) of the image, and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graphen.jpg) is a render showing how the atoms (and bonds) in graphene are arranged.
The gap in the top middle is just that – a gap. There is nothing there. There *were* more carbon atoms there, but the electron beam has knocked them out of place.
The point of the video is to show how the remaining carbon atoms around the edge of the hole re-arrange themselves into the most stable arrangement they can find.
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