Iron is made up of atoms, the thermal expansion of solid iron is caused by C. the breaking of bonds between the iron atoms.
What is thermal expansion?
Thermal expansion  can be described as the tendency of matter to change in shape, volume, and area in response to a change in temperature.
It should be noted that the temperature  can be seen as a monotonic function of the average molecular kinetic energy of a substance , however When a substance is heated, the Kinetic energy that is present in the molecules will increases then they can start to vibrating more and usually maintain a greater average separation and this process will result to expoansion because bond will be broken.
Therefore, option C is correct.
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