Baryon
A baryon is a composite subatomic particle made up
of three quarks (as distinct from mesons, which
comprise one quark and one antiquark).
Baryons and mesons belong to the hadron family, which
are the quark-based particles. The name "baryon" comes from the Greek word for "heavy" (βαρύς, barys),
because, at the time of their naming, most known elementary particles had lower
masses than the baryons.
As quark-based particles, baryons
participate in the strong interaction, whereas leptons, which
are not quark-based, do not. The most familiar baryons are the protons andneutrons that make up most of the mass of the visible matter in the universe. Electrons(the
other major component of the atom) are
leptons. Each baryon has a corresponding antiparticle (antibaryon) where quarks are replaced by their
corresponding antiquarks.
For example, a proton is made of two up quarks and
one down quark; and its corresponding antiparticle, the antiproton, is made
of two up antiquarks and one down antiquark.
Source: wikipedia, NASA
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