How did Rutherford's foil experiment lead to the structure of the atom?

Rutherford's gold foil experiment, conducted in 1909, involved firing alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold. Most particles passed through, but a small fraction were deflected at large angles, indicating the presence of a dense, positively charged nucleus at the center of the atom. This led to the conclusion that atoms consist mostly of empty space, with electrons orbiting around a central nucleus, thereby refining the earlier plum pudding model and establishing the nuclear model of the atom.