Where does Helium Come From?

As you sat there on your fifth birthday, staring at your blue balloon, I am sure the question that was racing through your mind was, "Where does Helium come from?" Is there some magical supply, a faucet at the end of the rainbow that when turned expels the glorious gas?

Nope. Let's cut straight to it, Helium comes from Alpha particles. An alpha particle is a particle consisting of two neutrons and two

protons, with no electrons. Therefore it has a charge of 2+.

Alpha particles are commonly spit out of nuclei in their feeble attempt to gain stability. Usually the nuclei are larger, and have a way to go before they are comfortable with the number of protons and neutrons they have, so they spit out the fairly large alpha particle.

This alpha particle comes zinging out of the nucleus of a heavy atom with a 2+ charge and ~4 amu's of mass, making it very friendly. Like a dog at a party it will try to brush up against anything that comes remotely near it.

Due to the alpha particle's strong interacting abilities it will gain two electrons from some sucker that isn't paying attention. After doing so, it will become a very stable Helium atom. So stable some even call it noble! Since Helium is lighter then our atmosphere, it will just float away, never to be seen again.

I was out shopping with my wife the other day and I saw a kid walk out of a party store with a ring shaped balloon. The wind picked up and it blew the balloon away. Slowly but surely, that thing soared higher and higher into the heavens. I just stared at it for a good ten minutes and watched it on its way. It was awesome.

I have heard we are currently facing a Helium shortage. I haven't looked into that very much, so maybe you can do so and report to me what you find. I do know that a lot of the Helium we once had came from the Earth's radioactive core. There are a lot of alpha particles being produced there.

If the Helium shortage ever becomes drastic, don't worry-I have an idea. If you saw my last blog entry you know smoke alarms contain an alpha emitter. If we just rounded up all the smoke alarms in a large building and harvested the alpha particles, we would have a fresh supply of Helium in no time!

Well, thanks for reading, check out my other blogs in the blog archive to the right and up a little.

See if your friends know that little tid bit!