Sunflower

 

Helium was the first element NOT to be discovered on earth. It was found on the sun in 1868 using a spectroscope during a total eclipse. Our sun produces some 700 million tons of helium per second. Helium wasn’t found on earth until 1895. It is the second most abundant element in the galaxy, but on our planet, it’s pretty rare. Because it’s the galaxy’s second lightest element, earth’s gravity isn’t strong enough to hold it here. We find helium in pockets in the earth’s crust, alongside natural gas. Qatar currently supplies 30% of the world’s helium. We use it for party balloons, but also for MRI machines, deep-dive tanks, NASA space launches, computer chip manufacturing, and arc welding. It’s not really a renewable resource (unless we find a way to harvest it from our sun), and it’s been estimated that the earth will run out of helium in thirty years or less.