Helium
🎈 In Your World
Helium is famous for making balloons float and voices squeaky! Because it's much lighter than air and completely non-flammable, it's the safe choice for party balloons and giant parade floats. It's also a critical element in science and medicine, used as an ultra-cold liquid to cool the powerful magnets in MRI scanners and particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider.
📖 The Discovery Story
Helium has a unique discovery story—it was found on the Sun before it was found on Earth! In 1868, French astronomer Jules Janssen and English astronomer Norman Lockyer independently observed a mysterious yellow line in the sun's spectrum during a solar eclipse. Lockyer realized it was a new element and named it "helium" after Helios, the Greek god of the sun. It wasn't found on Earth until 1895.
📊 Properties at a Glance
| Phase at STP | Gas |
| Melting Point | -272.2 °C / -457.96 °F (at 2.5 MPa) |
| Boiling Point | -268.93 °C / -452.07 °F |
| Electron Configuration | 1s² |
| Abundance in Earth's Crust | 0.0000008% |
⚠️ Safety & Handling
Helium is non-toxic and inert, so it doesn't react with other elements. However, inhaling helium from a balloon can be dangerous. It displaces the oxygen in your lungs, and inhaling too much can lead to dizziness, loss of consciousness, or even asphyxiation from lack of oxygen.