Atom
The actual mass of an atom at rest is often expressed using the unified atomic mass unit (u), also called dalton (Da). This unit is defined as a twelfth of the mass of a free neutral atom of carbon-12, which is approximately . Hydrogen-1 (the lightest isotope of hydrogen which is also the nuclide with the lowest mass) has an atomic weight of 1.007825 u. The value of this number is called the atomic mass. A given atom has an atomic mass approximately equal (within 1%) to its mass number times the atomic mass unit (for example the mass of a nitrogen-14 is roughly 14 u). However, this number will not be exactly an integer except in the case of carbon-12 (see below). The heaviest stable atom is lead-208, with a mass of .
Mass (mass spectrometry)
The nominal mass for an element is the mass number of its most abundant naturally occurring stable isotope, and for an ion or molecule, the nominal mass is the sum of the nominal masses of the constituent atoms. Isotope abundances are tabulated by IUPAC: for example carbon has two stable isotopes C at 98.9% natural abundance and C at 1.1% natural abundance, thus the nominal mass of carbon is 12. The nominal mass is not always the lowest mass number, for example iron has isotopes Fe, Fe, Fe, and Fe with abundances 6%, 92%, 10%, and 2%, respectively, and a nominal mass of 56. For a molecule, the nominal mass is obtained by summing the nominal masses of the constituent elements, for example water has two hydrogen atoms with nominal mass 1 and one oxygen atom with nominal mass 16, therefore the nominal mass of HO is 18.