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The shape of the s orbital is a sphere; s orbitals are spherically symmetric around the nucleus—they look like hollow balls made of chunky material with the nucleus at the center.
The nodes of s orbital is n-1; the angular nodes is l, which is 0 for all s orbitals; the radial nodes is n-l-1, which is n-1 for all s orbitals. Therefore, s orbital only has radial nodes, which are spheres.
If n increases, s orbitals become larger, extending farther from the nucleus. They contain more nodes. This is similar to a standing wave that has regions of significant amplitude separated by nodes, points with zero amplitude. For a given atom, the s orbitals also become higher in energy as n increases because of their increased distance from the nucleus.
Each s orbital can hold a maximum of two electrons with opposite spins according to the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
s orbitals exist in all energy levels (n = 1, 2, 3, ...), and as the principal quantum number increases, the size of the S orbital also increases.
s orbitals play a fundamental role in describing the electronic structure of atoms and are the simplest and most spherical among the atomic orbitals.
Figure 03: Hydrogen's electron - the 1s orbital
In the hydrogen case, the electron can be found anywhere within a spherical space surrounding the nucleus. The figure above shows a cross-section of this spherical space. 95% of the time (or any arbitrary, high percentage), the electron is found within a fairly easily defined region of space quite close to the nucleus. The orbital occupied by the hydrogen electron is called a 1s orbital. The number "1" represents the fact that the orbital is in the energy level closest to the nucleus.
Figure 04: Hydrogen's electron - the 2s orbital
The orbital shown on left side is a 2s orbital. This is similar to a 1s orbital, except that the region where there is the greatest chance of finding the electron is further from the nucleus. This is an orbital at the second energy level. There is another region of slightly higher electron density (where the dots are thicker) nearer the nucleus ("electron density" is another way of describing the likelihood of an electron at a particular place).
2s (and 3s, 4s, etc.) electrons spend some of their time closer to the nucleus than might be expected. The effect of this is to slightly reduce the energy of electrons in s orbitals. The nearer the nucleus the electrons get, the lower their energy. 3s, 4s (etc.) orbitals are progressively further from the nucleus.
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