RE: Positive week ahead27 Jun 2024 18:15
The rise of the helium industry
The History of Helium Exploration,
January 2019 Jon Gluyas
Helium was first observed during the solar eclipse of 1868 as a dark adsorption line in the Sun's spectrum. Originally believed to be a solar metal, it was given the name "helium" from the Greek word for the sun, "helios".
Although the element was also recognized in the spectrum of the gases emitted from Vesuvius in 1882, it was not until 1889 during experiments conducted by William F. Hillebrand that a sample of helium gas was finally obtained from uraninite. The experiments were repeated in Uppsala by Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langer in 1895, leading to a measurement of the atomic weight of helium.
Helium is a monatomic gas at temperatures above 4 degrees Kelvin. With an atomic number of 2 and an atomic mass of 4 (or more rarely, 3), it has the smallest atomic radius of all elements, 31 picometers. Helium is the most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, but it is extremely rare on Earth; the atmosphere contains about 5.2 parts per million, the Earth's crust about 8 parts per billion, and seawater about 4 parts per trillion.
gla π & let's hope that HE1 can give us good hope in the short term.