Where was helium discovered?


Helium was originally discovered on the sun by a French astronomer named Pierre-Jules-Cesar Janssen. Janssen made his discovery when he observed a yellow line within the sun's spectrum in 1868 during a solar eclipse.

The English astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer identified that the yellow line discovered in the sun's spectrum was not produced by any element known to man at the time. Lockyer came to the conclusion that the new element was produced by the sun and named it helium. Helium was eventually found on Earth when Sir William Ramsey, a Scottish scientist, performed an experiment with clevite, a mineral that contains uranium.

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