The Three States of Matter
≈ 18 minEverything around you — a brick, your juice, the air you breathe — is made of matter. Matter is anything that takes up space and has mass.
Matter comes in three states, and we tell them apart by how they behave:
- Solid: keeps its own shape and its own size. A brick stays a brick whether it is on the ground or in a box.
- Liquid: takes the shape of its container but keeps the same amount. You can pour it. Juice poured from a bottle into a glass takes the glass's shape.
- Gas: spreads out to fill the whole container, with no fixed shape or size. The air pumped into a soccer ball fills every part of it.
Which of these is a property of a solid?
Which state of matter takes the shape of its container, keeps the same amount, and can be poured?
Which of these is a gas at room temperature?
Complete the sentence: Matter is anything that takes up space and has ______.