Most of the townspeople were disappointed, but Kansas state geologist Erasmus Haworth became curious. At a celebration of a new gas well in Dexter, Kansas, the mayor attempted to ignite the escaping gases, only to find that the flames went out. The initial hint that helium was lurking in natural gas occurred in 1903, according to the American Chemical Society (ACS). Instead, the helium used in science and industry today comes from natural gas, where this element was first discovered in 1905. As such, it's not economical to extract the gas from air. Credit for this discovery goes to Swedish chemists Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langer.Įarth's atmosphere is only about 5 parts per million, or 0.0005 percent, helium. It wasn't until 1895, however, that helium's presence on Earth was confirmed and that scientist discovered its atomic weight. According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Italian physicist Luigi Palmieri observed a wavelength of 587.49 nanometers in gases emitted from Mount Vesuvius in 1882, the first detection of helium on Earth. The discovery of helium on Earth took longer. The scientists dubbed this mystery element "helium," after Helios, the Greek god of the sun. Working with chemist Edward Frankland, Lockyer concluded that the line was the fingerprint of an unknown element. Two months later, though, English astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer set up his own spectroscope in London and saw that same yellow line. Janssen didn't identify the source of this wavelength.
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