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Helium

Helium is a colorless, odorless, and non-toxic noble gas that is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. It accounts for about 24% of the elemental mass in the observable universe. Helium exists naturally as a gas except under extreme conditions and was first detected spectroscopically in 1868 during a solar eclipse. It is used industrially in applications such as cryogenics including MRI machines, as a pressurizing and shielding gas for welding, and for growing silicon wafers. On Earth, most helium is produced through the radioactive decay of heavy elements in the crust and is extracted from natural gas reserves where it can be concentrated up to 7% by

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79 views

Helium

Helium is a colorless, odorless, and non-toxic noble gas that is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. It accounts for about 24% of the elemental mass in the observable universe. Helium exists naturally as a gas except under extreme conditions and was first detected spectroscopically in 1868 during a solar eclipse. It is used industrially in applications such as cryogenics including MRI machines, as a pressurizing and shielding gas for welding, and for growing silicon wafers. On Earth, most helium is produced through the radioactive decay of heavy elements in the crust and is extracted from natural gas reserves where it can be concentrated up to 7% by

Uploaded by

zidaaan
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Helium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium

Helium is a chemical element with symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the
noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling and melting points are the lowest among the elements and it exists only as a gas except in extreme
conditions.
Helium is the second lightest element and is the second most abundant element in the observable universe, being present at about 24% of the total
elemental mass, which is more than 12 times the mass of all the heavier elements combined. Its abundance is similar to this figure in the Sun and in Jupiter.
This is due to the very high nuclear binding energy (per nucleon) of helium-4 with respect to the next three elements after helium. This helium-4 binding
energy also accounts for why it is a product of both nuclear fusion and radioactive decay. Most helium in the universe is helium-4, and is believed to have
been formed during the Big Bang. Large amounts of new helium are being created by nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars.
Helium is named for the Greek god of the Sun, Helios. It was first detected as an unknown yellow spectral line signature in sunlight during a solar eclipse in
1868 by French astronomer Jules Janssen. Janssen is jointly credited with detecting the element along with Norman Lockyer. Jannsen observed during the
solar eclipse of 1868 while Lockyer observed from Britain. Lockyer was the first to propose that the line was due to a new element, which he named. The
formal discovery of the element was made in 1895 by two Swedish chemists, Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langlet, who found helium emanating
from the uranium ore cleveite. In 1903, large reserves of helium were found in natural gas fields in parts of the United States, which is by far the largest
supplier of the gas today.
Helium is used in cryogenics (its largest single use, absorbing about a quarter of production), particularly in the cooling of superconducting magnets, with
the main commercial application being in MRI scanners. Helium's other industrial usesas a pressurizing and purge gas, as a protective atmosphere for arc
welding and in processes such as growing crystals to make silicon wafersaccount for half of the gas produced. A well-known but minor use is as a lifting
gas in balloons and airships.[2] As with any gas whose density differs from that of air, inhaling a small volume of helium temporarily changes the timbre and
quality of the human voice. In scientific research, the behavior of the two fluid phases of helium-4 (helium I and helium II) is important to researchers
studying quantum mechanics (in particular the property of superfluidity) and to those looking at the phenomena, such as superconductivity, produced in
matter near absolute zero.
On Earth it is relatively rare 5.2 ppm by volume in the atmosphere. Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of
heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium, although there are other examples), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4
nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a
low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation. Helium is a finite resource and is one of the few elements with escape velocity, meaning that
once released into the atmosphere, it escapes into space.[3][4][5]

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