Helium Facts

Check out these great helium facts relating to its

discovery, uses and chemical properties.
Learn about helium balloons, noble gases, the
helium atom, the balloon boy hoax, space related helium
storage tanks, how helium can change a persons voice and
much more with our range of interesting helium facts,
properties and information.

Helium is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2.

Helium is a colorless, tasteless and odorless gas.

Helium is the second most common element in the Universe (after hydrogen), making up around 24% of its mass.

Helium is part of a group of chemical elements called noble gases, the other five that occur naturally are neon, argon, k
and radon. Under normal conditions they share similar properties, including being less likely to participate in chemical
to their outer shell of electrons being full. Helium is the second least reactive element after neon.

French and English astronomers Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyer are jointly credited with discovering helium after
analysis of sunlight following a solar eclipse in 1868.

The word helium comes from the Greek word meaning sun (helios). It was named by Lockyer and English chemist Edw
Frankland.

The USA is the worlds largest supplier of helium, with many reserves found in large natural gas fields.

The rate at which helium is currently being used by humans is much faster than the rate at which the reserves are being
New technologies for obtaining or recycling helium are one way for gas companies to help slow this problem.

Because helium is lighter than air it is commonly used to fill airships, blimps and balloons. As it doesnt burn or react w
chemicals, helium is relatively safe to use for this purpose.

While hydrogen is 7% more buoyant than helium it has a much higher fire risk.

You might notice the helium balloon you got from the amusement park slowly falling to the ground after a few days, th
the helium gradually leaks from the balloon.

Helium has a lifting force of around one gram per liter. A balloon that holds 10 liters of helium should therefore lift an o
weighing 10 grams. Unfortunately youll need around 5000 of these balloons if you weigh around 50kgs and want to ge
ground.

The balloon boy hoax from October 15, 2009 led people to believe that a six year old boy had floated away in a home m
balloon when in fact he was hiding at his house the whole time.

Because helium is less dense than normal air, when inhaled from a source such as a helium balloon it briefly changes th
persons voice, making it much sound much higher. However, breathing in too much helium can be very dangerous, pot
choking people due to a lack of oxygen.

Helium can be in a liquid and even solid state but they can only occur at temperatures near absolute zero.

Liquid helium is used to cool metals for superconductivity use. The European Organization for Nuclear Researchs (CE
Hadron Collider uses liquid helium to maintain an extremely low temperature.

Helium is often used in space programs, displacing fuel in storage tanks and having other rocket fuel applications

Neon Facts
Enjoy these cool neon facts for kids and learn more
about who discovered neon, what happens when the element
is electrically charged and the interesting history behind the
noble gas.
Check out a wide range of information that covers
everything from the chemical properties of neon to its use in
advertising signs.

Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10.

The name neon comes from the Greek word meaning new.

Neon is a colorless, odorless inert (not chemically reactive) gas. It is in a group called 'noble gases'
in the periodic table.

Neon has about two-thirds the density of air and is the second lightest noble gas after helium.

Neon was discovered by British chemists Sir William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers in 1898. The
pair were studying liquid air by chilling a sample of air until it became a liquid, then warming the
liquid up and collecting the gases as they boiled off. Neon was the second of three new gases to be
discovered by the pair the first being krypton and the third xenon.

Neon has no true chemical compounds, meaning it forms no compounds to fix it to solids or join
with other elements.

The melting point of neon is -433.46 F (-258.59 C) and the boiling point is -410.94 F (-246.08

C).

Neon is the fifth most abundant chemical element in the universe after hydrogen, helium, oxygen,
and carbon. It is however, a rare gas in Earth's atmosphere, making up just 0.0018%.

Stable isotope forms of neon are produced within stars.

Neon gas emits a brilliant red-orange color when charged with electricity.

In 1902, a French engineer Georges Claude began creating neon lighting with the surplus neon
leftover from his air liquefaction company. He tried using neon tubes for indoor lighting, but the
color put homeowners off. So instead, in 1912, his company began selling neon discharge tubes as
advertising signs.

Neon advertising signage was a success and in 1923 the concept was introduced to the U.S. when
two large neon signs were put up by a Los Angeles Packard car dealership.

While neon accounts for the bright reddish-orange light in advertising signs all other colors are
generated by other noble gases or by colors of fluorescent lighting, yet they are still referred to as
neon signs.

Today, neon has uses in vacuum tubes, high-voltage indicators, lightning arrestors, wave meter
tubes, television tubes, plasma tubes and helium-neon lasers.

Liquid neon is also now commercially available and is used as a cryogenic refrigerant.

Because neon is quite rare in our atmosphere both neon gas and liquid neon are relatively expensive
costing more than 55 times that of liquid helium.

If a balloon is filled with neon it will rise in the air but do so at a much slower rate than a balloon
filled with helium

Radon Facts
Enjoy these interesting radon facts and learn more
about the properties of this radioactive noble gas.
Being one of the heaviest gases, radon tends to
accumulate in low lying areas such as house basements, but is
a gas that is very hard to detect. Read on for more amazing
radon facts!

Radon is a chemical element, its symbol is Rn and it has an atomic number of 86.

Radon is a radioactive noble gas, it is colorless, odorless and tasteless.

When radon is cooled below its freezing point of 96 F (71 C) it emits a bright radiating
luminescence that starts out yellow and as the temperature lowers becomes a orangey red color.

Radon has a melting point of -95 F (-71 C) and a boiling point of -79 F (-61.7 C).

Under normal conditions radon is one of the densest and is the heaviest of known gases.

The radioactive health risk of radon and the fact it costs a lot has made it hard for experimental

chemical research to be performed. Therefore very few radon compounds have been found.

In 1900, German physicist Friedrich Ernst Dorn discovered radon when he found that radium
compounds emit a radioactive gas which he called Radium Emanation. In 1908, William Ramsay and
Robert Whytlaw Gray isolated radon and figured out its density.

The naturally occurring decay of the two most common radioactive elements uranium and thorium,
produces radium. Decay of radium then produces radon. As radon decays, it produces more
radioactive elements called radon daughters or decay products.

Radon gas and its decay particles can reach very high concentrations inside buildings. This is
especially true in lower levels such as basements due to the heaviness of the gas. Thus, radon is
considered a significant contaminant to indoor air quality.

There is a clear link between breathing high concentrations of radon and incidence of lung cancer.
After smoking, radon is the 2nd most frequent cause of lung cancer with over 21,000 lung cancer
deaths per year in the US alone.

In the 1940s and 50s very little ventilation in mines meant incidents of lung cancer due to radon
exposure was high among miners of uranium and other hard rock materials, especially in the Czech
Republic and U.S. This lead to an overhaul of mining ventilation systems around the world.

Radon naturally occurs in some hot springs and other spring waters.