octahedral molecular structure

[reva_bajjuri]

this is kind of a random question, but why is the name for a central atom connected to 6 atoms "octahedral" instead of "hexagonal'?

[Rachel Jiang 3H]

Hi! The central atom and the six atoms bonded to it forms the shape of an octahedron so the molecular geometry is octahedral instead of hexagonal.

[VincentLe_3A]

If you visualize 6 bonds to a central atom, there would be 4 equatorial bonds and 2 axial bonds. There would be 8 triangular "faces" if you were to connect all of these bonds to visualize the shape. Therefore, it would be octahedral because of these 8 faces, which resemble a octahedron shape.