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Helium is a noble gas and will not react chemically with anything. It also has a very low density. Therefore, it was not found combined with other elements either in the sea or in the earth's crust (as are other elements) and neither is it found in any appreciable amounts in the atmosphere - as, like hydrogen, the lightest gas of all, it will escape into space because the earth' gravity is not enough to hold it in the atmosphere. Much of the helium found on earth is obtained fro the decay of radioactive sunstances that give off alpha radiation - alpha particles are the nuclei of helium atoms. Therefore on earth helium is not particularly common. In the sun, however, helium is formed by the fusion of hydrogen atoms to form helium and great deals of energy during thermonuclear reactions that are happening on an enormous scale within the sun. The helium therefore is much more abundant in the sun. All elements, when heated sufficiently, give off light of a particular kind. As an example sodium produces a yellow light (as in sodium street lamps). The light from individual elements can be analysed and the various colours in the light (caused by differing intensities at different wavelengths) - known as the substance's spectrum - acts as a sort of 'fingerprint' for a particular element. When the light from the sun was analysed in this way, the spectrum for hydrogen was present (as the spectrum for hydrogen was well known as the hydrogen spectrum had already been analysed in the laboratory). However another sectrum was also present superimposed on the hydrogen - a spectrum that was unknown. Therefore it was assumed that this was due to an as yet undiscovered element - named 'helium' from the Greek for sun - helios. Only later on was this element, abudant in the sun, discovered on earth where it was much rarer.

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16y ago
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4mo ago

The sun was first discovered by early humans as the source of light and warmth. Its existence predates the discovery of Earth as a planet orbiting around it. Our understanding of the sun has since evolved through scientific observation and study.

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13y ago

Spectroscopic analysis. Hydrogen was immediately indentified, and another element that could not be identified at first - so it was named "the sun's element", that is: "Helium". Soon after that, Helium was discovered on earth, and is well-known now, but it retains it's initial name.

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15y ago

Helium was first observed on the sun. It gets its name from the Greek word for sun, Helios.

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11y ago

Helium was discovered in the sun specroscopically

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12y ago

If you mean what was discovered on the sun before it was discovered on earth, the answer is helium.

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Q: What was discovered by the sun before it was discover on earth?
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Related questions

Helium was discovered in the sun before it was discovered on earth. How?

Helium was discovered in the sun specroscopically


What did galieo discover?

Earth surround SunEarth is cycleCenter of Universe is not Earth!!!by daniellemonterrubiohe discovered that the sun surrounded the earth and that's how we get the day and night


What did corpernicus discover?

Nicolaus Copernicus discovered that the sun, rather than the earth, was at the center of the universe. His book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, was published just before his death in 1543.


What element was found after being on the sun for 27 years?

Helium. It was discovered on the Sun many years before it was discovered on Earth.


Helium was discovered as component of the?

Helium was first discovered as a component of the sun before being discovered on earth. Hence the name.


Where does the very light gas helium get its name?

From the Sun. Helium was discovered on the Sun (to be precise, in its spectrum), before it was discovered on Earth.


What did j Kepler discover?

The scientist Johannes Kepler discovered that the earth orbits the sun. In his book The New Astronomy from 1609 he explained how he figured this out.


What did copernicus discover about the universe?

He discovered the revolutionary theory about the sun.


Element discovered on the sun before earth?

Helium was first discovered in the spectrum of the sun before it was found on Earth. Scientists noted a yellow line in the solar spectrum during a solar eclipse in 1868, which was later determined to be due to the presence of helium.


What element was first discovered in space before it was discovered on earth?

The element helium was first discovered in space through its spectral lines in the sun's spectrum. It was later discovered on Earth through the analysis of uranium ores in 1895.


Who was the sun discovered by?

There is not much to "discover" - it is right there in the sky, for everybody to see.


Who discover the earth moves around the sun?

The first man to discover that the earth moves around the sun was an Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei.