Speaker 1: It gets smarter in sixty seconds with brain Stuff from
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Hi, I'm marshall brain. Have
Speaker 1: you ever wondered where helium comes from? It's actually an
Speaker 1: interesting question. If you put helium into a balloon and
Speaker 1: let go of the balloon, the balloon rises until it pops.
Speaker 1: When it pops, the helium that escapes has no reason
Speaker 1: to stop. It just keeps going and leaks out into space. Therefore,
Speaker 1: there is very little helium in the atmosphere at any
Speaker 1: given time. The helium that we put into balloons has
Speaker 1: to be created, and most of it gets created by uranium.
Speaker 1: Most helium on Earth comes from radioactive decay like this.
Speaker 1: A radioactive alpha particle is really just a helium nucleus.
Speaker 1: It picks up a couple of electrons and it becomes
Speaker 1: a helium atom. In places that have a lot of
Speaker 1: uranium ore, natural gas tends to contain high concentrations of helium,
Speaker 1: up to seven percent. This makes sense because the decay
Speaker 1: of uranium emits lots of alpha particles, and a natural
Speaker 1: gas pocket tends to be just a big sealed container
Speaker 1: underground to hold the helium. Helium is cryogenically distilled out
Speaker 1: of the natural gas to produce the helium that we
Speaker 1: put into balloons. Do you have any ideas or suggestions
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Speaker 1: at podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, go to how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com