This page is designed to allow you to manipulate images of atomic orbitals and compare multiple orbitals (up to four) by displaying them simultaneously on one atom. The goal is to help you visualize atomic orbitals and their relative sizes.

You will notice that these orbitals look somewhat different from the orbitals on a one electron hydrogen atom. Generally, orbitals in many electron atoms appear to be somewhat more squat than the equivalent hydrogen atom orbitals. As the nuclear charge increases orbitals also get more compact. This is expected because of the increased electrostatic attraction between the nucleus and each electron.

Below (you may need to scroll down) is a box with a green dot in it. The green dot represents the location of a chlorine nucleus (significantly enlarged so that you can see it). To the right (or below on a narrow screen) are dropdown selectors from which you can choose an orbital to display and control the appearance of each orbital. The orbitals appear in the dropdowns in the order orbitals are filled when assigning configurations using the periodic table: lowest energy (at top) to highest energy (at bottom).

The electronic configuration of a ground state chlorine is [Ne]3s²3p⁵ (1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁵).  This means that the 4s, 3d and 4p orbitals shown are unoccupied;  thus their extent and energy are somewhat different than would be found for orbitals with electrons in them.