Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, yet it is vanishingly rare on Earth.

Helium was first detected in 1868 by French astronomer Pierre Janssen during a solar eclipse observation. While it ranks as the second most abundant element in the observable universe after hydrogen, helium is effectively a non-renewable resource on Earth because of how easily it escapes our atmosphere.The reason for this escape is straightforward physics: helium has the lowest atomic mass of any element except hydrogen. This low mass means helium atoms move faster at any given temperature and can more easily reach escape velocity—the speed needed to break free from Earth's gravitational pull. Once helium enters the atmosphere, Earth's gravity is simply too weak to retain it, and the atoms drift away into space permanently.On Earth, helium is produced slowly through the radioactive decay of heavy elements like uranium and thorium in the planet's crust. Over millions of years, this process generates small amounts of helium gas, which becomes trapped in natural gas deposits underground. The primary commercial source has been the United States Federal Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Texas, established in 1925. This facility once contained over 1 billion cubic meters of helium, but global supplies have declined significantly in recent decades as demand has grown.Helium's scarcity matters because it is irreplaceable for critical applications: cooling the superconducting magnets in MRI machines, manufacturing semiconductors, and supporting advanced scientific research. With no practical way to recycle it and no way to create it synthetically at scale, the dwindling helium supply has become a genuine concern for the scientific and medical communities.