And so the 3rd phase of mitosis is metaphase. Metaphase is pretty easy to remember because you can think that the 'm' in metaphase is for the 'm' in the word metal. During metaphase, the mitotic spindles are going to align the chromosomes in the middle of the cell in a single file row. The equator, or the middle of the cell, is referred to as the metaphase plate. If we take a look at our image down below, we're showing you the phases of mitosis and we've already covered prophase and prometaphase in our previous lesson videos.
Here in this video, we're focusing specifically on metaphase, which you can see the image of metaphase is over here on the right. The events that occur during metaphase are here in the middle. Of course, when you're thinking about metaphase, you want to think about how this 'm' here is going to remind you of the 'm' in the word metal. The chromosomes are going to align in the middle of the cell on the metaphase plate. Notice that the chromosomes here are lining up in a single file row, right here in the middle of the cell.
Now, the fact that the chromosomes are aligning in a single row is actually going to be very important here because later in our course when we're talking about meiosis, we'll see that, in some scenarios of meiosis, the chromosomes are not going to align in a single file row and instead they're going to align in 2 rows. The fact that during mitosis it aligns in a single row is going to be important to keep in mind. This here concludes our introduction to metaphase and of course after metaphase is the 4th phase, anaphase, so we'll talk about that in our next video.