Welcome to the Community College of the Air Force (CCAF). Our college is a federally-chartered degree-granting institution that serves the United States Air Force's enlisted total force.
Isotopes of an element have nuclei with the same number of protons (the same atomic number) but different numbers of neutrons. Therefore, isotopes have different mass numbers, which give the total number of nucleons-the number of protons plus neutrons.
From left to right, the isotopes are protium (1H) with zero neutrons, deuterium (2H) with one neutron, and tritium (3H) with two neutrons. Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which differ in neutron number. All isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons in each atom.