Question

Can someone please clarify for me the following... I am very confused in chemistry when it comes to orbitals and what exactly they mean and represent. Like let's take a random element.. for example Fe. Iron has an electron configuration of 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s²3d⁶, but what exactly does that mean? Please answer the following to help me understand:

1. When I read 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s²3d⁶, does this represent a single electron in Fe or does it represent all of them at once?
2. If it does represent a single electron then which electron are we referring to? If it represents them all at once then what does this iron atom look like?
3. What would the very outdated Bohr's model look like for such an atom?
4. Are 1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, 3d all different orbitals that always have some electron in them?
5. Does Fe have all of these orbitals at once or does it only have the one it ends with? (the d orbital).
6. What are the differences between a shell, an orbital and a subshell? (This one I'm ultra lost on).
7. Are electrons confined to their orbitals if they are not in an excited state or can they still move around freely even when they are not excited?

Please any CLEAR answer would be great because I feel like I've asked my teacher this 100 times and I just can't get a clear answer. Thank you so much.

Answer 1