A
quark ( or ) is an
elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of
matter. Quarks combine to form
composite particles called
hadrons, the most stable of which are
protons and
neutrons, the components of
atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as
color confinement, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, such as
baryons (of which protons and neutrons are examples), and
mesons. For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of the hadrons themselves.