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What is the electronic configuration of the oxygen molecule (O2) and how does this configuration result in the observed bond length of the molecule?

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The electronic configuration of the oxygen molecule  O2  can be determined by first looking at the electronic configuration of a single oxygen atom. An oxygen atom has 8 electrons, and its electronic configuration is 1s 2s 2p. In an oxygen molecule  O2 , there are two oxygen atoms, so there are a total of 16 electrons.To determine the molecular orbital configuration of O2, we use the molecular orbital  MO  theory, which combines the atomic orbitals of the individual oxygen atoms to form molecular orbitals. The molecular orbitals are filled with electrons in order of increasing energy.The molecular orbital configuration for O2 is:1.  1s 2. * 1s 3.  2s 4. * 2s 5.  2p 6.  2p 7. * 2p In this configuration, the  and  orbitals represent bonding orbitals, while the * and * orbitals represent antibonding orbitals. The bond order can be calculated as  number of electrons in bonding orbitals - number of electrons in antibonding orbitals  / 2. For O2, the bond order is  10-6 /2 = 2. This means that O2 has a double bond between the two oxygen atoms.The bond length of a molecule is influenced by the bond order and the type of bond. In general, higher bond orders result in shorter bond lengths because the atoms are held more tightly together by the stronger bond. For O2, the observed bond length is approximately 121 picometers  pm . This bond length is consistent with a double bond, which is shorter than a single bond but longer than a triple bond. The electronic configuration of O2, with a bond order of 2, helps to explain the observed bond length of the molecule.
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