Rutherford developed his nuclear model of the atom after the Geiger-Marsden experiment. This experiment was conducted in 1909 by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden under the direction of Ernest Rutherford. They fired alpha particles at a gold foil.
The result of the Geiger-Marsden experiment led Rutherford to challenge the widely held view of the plum pudding model. According to the plum pudding model the atom is a soup of positive charge with the electrons floating inside, therefore, the alpha particles where expected to be deflected/scattered in all different directions since they would be repelled by electrostatic repulsion.
However, he found that most of the alpha particles went straight through, or deflected only slightly, a very small number were in fact deflected back more than 90 degrees. This radical deflection suggested that the atom contained a very small positive nucleus, almost 10000 times smaller that the radius of the atom.
This led Rutherford to believe that most of the mass and the positive charge of the atom must be concentrated in a very small nucleus with a majority of the atom to be empty space, where the negative charge was located (electrons).
Rutherford's Model:
1) The atom consisted of mostly empty space.
2) There is a very dense tiny nucleus, which contains all of the positive charge and most of its mass.
3) Electrons orbit the nucleus in circular orbits. At this stage it was not known that electrons could not only reside at quantised/fixed distances from the nucleus.
4) Overall charge was neutral.
Limitations of the Rutherford Model:
1) Despite it's success, it could not account for the stability of electron orbits. Since electrons orbiting the nucleus were undergoing uniform circular motion then they must experience centripetal acceleration which means they must emit EMR (a stationary charge (electron in this case) produces an electric field, a moving charge at a constant velocity produces both an electric and a magnetic field and a moving charge with constant acceleration produces EMR). However, EMR is energy this means with time, the more an electron accelerated in circular motion the more energy it loses in the form of EMR, therefore, it is expected to spiral into the nucleus causing the atom to collapse. The Rutherford Model doesn't offer explanation to the stability of electron orbits around the nucleus which lead his student Bohr to make a model explaining this.
2) The Rutherford Model could not explain spectral lines.
This is all I know about the Rutherford Model, I believe that's all you need.
If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask
