Helium is Quickly Disappearing from Earth

That’s a serious problem… and not just for your next birthday party.

Remember when you were a kid and you used to suck the air out of birthday party balloons so that, when you talked, it would sound cartoonishly high pitched? Remember how fun that was?

Well, guess what friend? The party’s over! Now, mom’s crying over the punch bowl while dad storms out to go “buy another pack of cigarettes” leaving you with nothing but cake crumbs, shredded wrapping paper, and shattered birthday dreams.

And you deserve it too — you know why? Because you just wasted that helium! It’s going to space and it’s never coming back. Now scientists can’t perform quantum computing, doctors can’t do MRIs, and Jeff Bezos will NEVER get another penis-shaped rocketship into space!

Bet you didn’t see that coming, did ya?

I don’t mean to stress you out (I do, I love it) but helium is an insanely important and rare element that is quickly disappearing from our planet. Unlike nearly every other element on the periodic table, helium is light enough to resist gravity and float off into space, never to be seen again.

This makes helium 100% non-renewable! Ready to freak out as we learn more about this vanishing element that runs crucial parts of our lives? Great, let’s dive right in then!

*high-pitched helium crying*

1868 Helium is first discovered 93,000,000 miles away from Earth while being radiated out of our good friend, the sun. In honor of this stellar discovery, it’s named helium, after the Greek god of the sun, Helios.

1895 Turns out that helium exists on Earth too! This helium-sized leap forward was thanks to Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay who burned some uranium, collected the gas it emitted, and realized what it was.

1903 A massive helium reserve is discovered in Kansas which is where most of the world gets its helium even today!

1914–1919 Tired of their hydrogen-filled zeppelins exploding after being shot at with incendiary bullets, the US begins experimenting with helium zeppelins instead (helium doesn’t…

Related posts:

Today was such a weird day for me. A mixed bag of treats. As soon as I woke up, I felt this nostalgic energy whipping around my bedroom. Yet I was not entirely sure what I was feeling nostalgic…

Do you like a challenge, are you a complex thinker who likes to solve problems? If so, then you might be the new Altairian we are searching for. At Altair, your curiosity matters. We pride ourselves…

Returning to Georgia from a wild bachelorette party in NOLA over the weekend, I woke up today feeling like my body had been trampled by a freight train. A nasty sinus infection was spreading in our…