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helium: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As He

Photos and Videos

A labeled diagram of the periodic table entry for helium shows its atomic number 2, symbol He, atomic weight 4.002602, electron configuration 1s2, and classifies helium as a noble gas with a hexagonal crystal structure and gaseous state at 20 degrees Celsius.
phase diagram of helium-3
A large white helium balloon lifts a man above dense tropical plants inside the glass-domed Rainforest Biome at the Eden Project.
Figure 12: The energy levels of three nuclei with A = 6, relative to the ground state of 6Li after subtraction of the calculated electrostatic energy. The isospin T = 1 levels exist in all three nuclei.
Line graph showing the first ionization energies of the elements as a function of atomic number, with peaks at noble gases like helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon, and labeled elements at key points.
A scientific graph plots average nuclear binding energy per nucleon (in MeV) against atomic mass number, showing a sharp rise at low mass numbers, peaking near iron (Fe), then gradually declining for heavier elements. Key isotopes are labeled along the curve.
A vertical temperature scale shows the cryogenic region, highlighted from absolute zero up to about 90 kelvin, with key points where gases like oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium liquefy, alongside temperature conversions between kelvin, Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Rankine.
Will we run out of helium?
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Key People

Lev Davidovich Landau
Lev Davidovich Landau
Russian physicist
William Ramsay
Sir William Ramsay
British chemist
Kamerlingh Onnes
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
Dutch physicist
Edward Frankland
Sir Edward Frankland
British scientist
Lockyer
Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer
British astronomer
helium
Heinrich Kayser
German physicist
helium
Willem Hendrik Keesom
Dutch physicist

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