Mitosis is a type of cell division in which one cell, or the mother, divides to produce two new cells, the daughter cells. Each daughter cell has the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus.
There are four phases of mitosis: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase, where cytokinesis, the process of dividing the cell starts in either the anaphase or telophase stage. If mitosis were not accompanied by cytoplasmic division, there would only be one cell with two identical nuclei because the division did not occur for there to be two different cells.