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Helium (Element)
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Helium is the second most abundant and second lightest element in the Universe. In the modern Universe almost all new helium is created as a result of the nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars. On Earth it is created by the radioactive decay of much heavier elements (alpha particles are helium nuclei). After its creation, part of it is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume. It is extracted from the natural gas by a low temperature separation process called fractional distillation.
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Helium, a colorless gas at room temperature, is the first element in the noble gas group, and forms few compounds. It is rare in the atmosphere (1 part in 200,000) and recovered on Earth principally by its separation from natural gas obtained in underground wells. Named for the Sun (in Greek, helios), helium is a component of the production of energy as well as the basis of the science and technology of cryogenics. Its presence at the surface of the Sun was first confirmed by amateur British astronomer Joseph Norman Lockyer (1868), who observed characteristic lines in the optical spectrum of the Sun, at whose surface helium is produced via the energy-releasing fusion of hydrogen and deuterium nuclei.
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Corrosion Source - Helium has the lowest melting point in all the elements. It widely used in cryogenic research because its boiling point is almost zero. Helium normally has a 0 valence. It does not really combine with other elements. Helium is ... being used to advertise on blimps for various companies, including Goodyear.
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Helium comes from the Greek word helios which is the sun. Helium was first detected in 1868. Helium is extracted from natural gas. It has been been used in arc welding, as a cooling agent in a nuclear reactor, and cryogenics. Helium is ... used by deep-sea divers by adding it to the oxygen in their air tanks, to counteract the pressure forces on their bodies during deep dives.
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Helium is chemically unreactive under all normal conditions due to its valence of zero. It is an electrical insulator unless ionized. As with the other noble gases, helium has metastable energy levels that allow it to remain ionized in an electrical discharge with a voltage below its ionization potential. Helium can form unstable compounds with tungsten, iodine, fluorine, sulfur and phosphorus when it is subjected to an electric glow discharge, through electron bombardment or is otherwise a plasma. HeNe, HgHe10, WHe2 and the molecular ions He2+, He2++, HeH+, and HeD+ have been created this way. This technique has ... allowed the production of the neutral molecule He2, which has a large number of band systems, and HgHe, which is apparently only held together by polarization forces.[1] Theoretically, other compounds, like helium fluorohydride (HHeF), may also be possible.
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Helium was not first discovered on Earth; it was first discovered in the Sun! In 1868, the chromosphere of the Sun was studied during a solar eclipse. The study was done using an instrument that breaks a light into its spectrum, like a prism breaks sunlight into its rainbow colors. The instrument used is called a spectrometer. The French astronomer Janssen studied the spectrum produced during this event, and concluded that a new, yellow stripe was due to an element not previously known. In 1895, Sir William Ramsay proved the existence of helium on Earth in his studies of a radioactive ore material from Norway (the discovery of radium in 1898 showed that helium was indeed a by-product of the natural breakdown of radioactive elements).
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Helium (Element)