The discovery that inert helium can form bonds with iron may reshape our understanding of Earth’s history. Researchers from ...

Helium-neon lasers may be little more than glorified neon signs, but there’s just something about that glowing glass tube that makes the whole process of stimulated emission easier to understand.

Researchers from Japan and Taiwan reveal for the first time that helium, usually considered chemically inert, can bond with iron under high pressures. They used a laser-heated diamond anvil cell to ...

Millot and colleagues squeezed a mixture of hydrogen and helium between two diamonds and hit the concoction with a powerful laser to compress it even further. As the pressure and temperature ...

Earth appears to be a chill blue planet, but deep down, it’s really a metalhead. Its outer core is mostly molten iron (and ...

For decades, scientists have puzzled over traces of primordial helium—a rare isotope known as ³He—escaping from volcanic ...

Scientists have uncovered surprising evidence that helium, a gas long thought to be chemically inert, may actually bond with ...

These results suggest that similar reactions between helium and iron may have occurred within Earth’s core shortly after its formation, trapping much of the primordial helium-3 in the material that ...

Iron can form compounds with helium at pressures as low as 5GPa – about 50,000 atmospheres – researchers in Japan report.