Atoms
I'm no scientist, but when an oxygen atom is stripped of some electrons, surely it ceases to be an oxygen atom ?
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has snapped the "jumbo jellyfish" resulting from the ejection of material from "humongous" V385 Carinae - a Wolf-Rayet star lying some 16,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Carina: WISE image of V385 Carinae. Pic: NASA NASA explains that V385 Carinae is about 35 …
It becomes a positively charged Oxygen atom. If it was to shed protons and neutrons, it's atomic mass and number would change, and henceforth be a diferent element. Electrons are of minimal mass (nearly 1 2000th of the mass of the neutron) and do not contribute to the atomic number (No. of neutrons) which give an element it's unique characteristics.
It's been many years since I studied this though so the old standard model may be wrong now! :)
Fantastic images though! Great stuff NASA
The basis of a Chemical Element is the number of PROTONS in the NUCLEUS.
The number of protons is commonly called the ATOMIC NUMBER and should be unique to all isotopes of that element.
For example HYDROGEN (in its most common isotope) has 1-P 0-N 1-E
One proton, zero neutrons and one electron.
Oxygen, Atomic Number 8.
therefore it has .. count 'em, 8 Protons and the isotopes have varying numbers of neutrons.
There are 8 electrons in two shells (shell 1=2, and shell 2=6).
The common isotope is Oxygen16 and has 8-P, 8-N, 8-E
Shove one of them together with two hydrogen and you have a substance which is found to exist to a high degree all over the world, it promotes decay in ferrous metals and can cause death by asphyixiation, its called Dihydro Monoxide.