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In physics and chemistry, an atomic orbital is the region in which an electron may be found around a single atom.[1] Specifically, atomic orbitals are the quantum states of the individual electrons in the electron cloud around a single atom. Classically, the electrons were thought to orbit the atomic nucleus, much like the planets around the Sun (or more accurately, a moth orbiting very quickly around a lamp). As electrons cannot be described as solid particles (as a planet or a moth), a more accurate analogy would be that of a huge atmosphere, the spatially distributed electron, around a tiny planet which is the atomic nucleus. Hence the term "orbit" was substituted with something else: orbital.