Helium gas

Helium gas was first discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Janssen in 1868 in the gaseous atmosphere around the Sun. This astronomer succeeded in discovering helium gas as a bright yellow line in the spectrum of the solar chromosphere. This line was originally associated with the element sodium.

In the same year, the English astronomer Joseph Norman Lockyer observed a yellow line in the solar spectrum that did not correspond to the known sodium D1 and D2 lines and called it the D3 line. Locker concluded that the D3 line was created by an element in the Sun that is unknown on Earth. He and chemist Edward Frankland used the Greek word “helios” meaning “sun god” to name this element.

British chemist Sir William Ramsey succeeded in discovering helium on earth in 1895. Ramzi obtained a sample of a mineral containing uranium and after examining the gas produced by heating the sample, he discovered a unique bright yellow line. The spectrum was consistent with the D3 line observed in the Sun’s spectrum. Therefore, the new element helium was definitively identified. In 1903, Ramsay and Frederic Sody concluded that helium is a product of spontaneous decay of radioactive substances.