Ernest Rutherford performed the gold foil experiment which gave a deeper perspective into what an atom really is. In his experiment, he bombarded a thin gold foil with an alpha particle source.
From the behavior of the alpha particles that associated with the gold foil, a number of conclusions were drawn:
He suggested that an atom has a small positively charged nucleus where the bulk of the atomic mass is concentrated.
Surrounding the nucleus is a large space which contains the electrons.
