Baryons arecompositesubatomic particles made of an odd number ofvalence quarks (at least threequarks).[1] The most familiar baryons are theprotons andneutrons which make up most of the visible matter in theuniverse.Electrons (the other major component of the atom) areleptons.
Since all quarks have aspin of 1/2, all baryons have a spin of 1/2 or 3/2 (the spins can cancel out). 1/2 spin baryons have the lowest energy state. 3/2 spin baryons are extremelyunstable, and only live for 10-23 seconds. After that, they jump down to a lower energy state by releasingphotons containingenergy. These 3/2 spin baryons are known as higher energyresonances.
Allparticles with 1/2 spin (or 3/2 spin) are calledfermions, and obeyFermi-Dirac statistics. This means that no two fermions can be in the same point in space at the same time. This is not true for the other type of subatomic particle, called aboson. More than one boson—like a photon—can exist in the same point in space at the same time.
Baryons are one of two types ofhadrons, which are particles made of quarks. The other type of hadron is called ameson.
The namebaryon comes from Greek "barys," meaning heavy.
