Ito Wade Andersibm age 14, of Gulfport, Miss., for his question:
WHEN WAS HELIUM DISCOVERED AND WHO FOUND IT?
Helium is a lightweight gas and chemical element that makes up only a small fraction of the earth's matter. But it is one of the most common elements in the universe. Evidence of helium in the sun was discovered by an English astronomer named Sir Joseph Lockyer in 1868.
Lockyer found the evidence of helium while studying the sun's light during an eclipse. He invented the name "helium" from the Greek word "helios," meaning "sun."
Helium was first found on the earth in 1895. A Scottish chemist named Sir William Ramsey and two Swedish chemists named Nils Langlet and Per Cleve found it in the mineral clevite.
Lockyer, who was born in 1836, was one of the first to make spectroscopic examinations of the sun and stars. He devised a method of observing solar prominences with the spectroscope in daylight.
In the same year that he named the element helium, Lockyer applied the name chromosphere to the layer or envelope of gas around the sun.
Lockyer was elected to fellowship in the Royal College of Science and director of the Solar Physics Observatory. Between 1870 and 1905 he headed eight government expeditions to observe total eclipses of the sun. He was knighted in 1897.
The sun and other stars are made mostly of helium and hydrogen. Helium, as a matter of fact, makes up about 23 percent of the matter in the visible universe. Helium is called an inert gas, or noble gas. This term is used because helium does not combine with other elements.
In addition to finding helium on earth, Ramsey also discovered other inert gases: neon, krypton and xenon. He also isolated the first rare atmosphere gas, argon.
For his work, Ramsey received the 1904 Noble prize for chemistry.
Ramsey was knighted in 1902 and 1911 he became president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Helium is a chemical element. A chemical element can be defined in either of two ways. It is a substance that cannot be broken down chemically into simpler substances, or it is s substance that contains only one kind of atom. Atoms are tiny bits of matter, so small that billions of them are needed to make even a small speck of any substance.
The idea that all things are elements and combinations of elements can be found in the writings of the ancient Greeks and other early peoples.
Twelve chemical elements were known in ancient times, but it was not known that they were elements. Another 76 elements were discovered between 1557 and 1925. Since 1937, 18 other elements have been discovered.
Seventeen of the known elements are "man made." That is, they were not originally found in nature. They were made when high speed atomic particles hit and changed the makeup of other atoms.