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What is the electronic configuration of the carbon monoxide (CO) molecule? Using quantum mechanics principles, calculate the bond order and predict the bond length of the CO molecule.

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The electronic configuration of the carbon monoxide  CO  molecule can be determined by first looking at the individual electronic configurations of the carbon  C  and oxygen  O  atoms.Carbon  C  has an atomic number of 6, so its electronic configuration is 1s 2s 2p.Oxygen  O  has an atomic number of 8, so its electronic configuration is 1s 2s 2p.When these two atoms form a CO molecule, they share electrons to form molecular orbitals. The molecular orbital theory helps us understand the electronic configuration of the CO molecule. In the formation of CO, the 2s and 2p orbitals of both C and O atoms interact to form bonding   and   and antibonding  * and *  molecular orbitals.The molecular orbital configuration of CO is: 2s  * 2s   2pz   2px   2py  * 2px  * 2py Now, we can calculate the bond order using the formula:Bond order =  number of electrons in bonding orbitals - number of electrons in antibonding orbitals  / 2Bond order =  6 - 4  / 2 = 2The bond order of the CO molecule is 2, which indicates a double bond between the carbon and oxygen atoms.Predicting the exact bond length requires experimental data or high-level quantum mechanical calculations. However, we can make an educated guess based on the bond order and known bond lengths of similar molecules. A typical C=O double bond length is around 1.20-1.25   angstroms .

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