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HELIUM
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A very light colorless element that is one of the six inert gasses; the most difficult gas to liquefy; occurs in economically extractable amounts in certain natural gases (as those found in Texas and Kansas)
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("helium" is a kind of...):
chemical element; element (any of the more than 100 known substances (of which 92 occur naturally) that cannot be separated into simpler substances and that singly or in combination constitute all matter)
argonon; inert gas; noble gas (any of the chemically inert gaseous elements of the helium group in the periodic table)
Context examples:
A type of external radiation therapy that uses a special machine to make invisible, high-energy particles (protons or helium ions) that kill cancer cells.
(Charged-particle radiation therapy, NCI Dictionary)
Though no more than several times the mass of Earth, their hydrogen/helium atmospheres are so bloated they are nearly the size of Jupiter.
('Cotton Candy' Planet Mysteries Unravel in New Hubble Observations, NASA)
The planet, Gliese 3470 b (also known as GJ 3470 b), may be a cross between Earth and Neptune, with a large rocky core buried under a deep, crushing hydrogen-and-helium atmosphere.
(Atmosphere of Midsize Planet Revealed by Hubble, Spitzer, NASA)
A brown dwarf converts hydrogen to deuterium, a hydrogen isotope, rather than helium, which is the usual result of such a process from most stars including the Sun.
(Astronomers discover smallest known star, Wikinews)
These extreme temperatures fueled the star’s next phase as it began to fuse helium into heavier atoms such as carbon and oxygen.
(Giant Bubbles on Red Giant Star’s Surface, ESO)
Compared to other hot Jupiters, this planet's atmosphere likely would contain 300 times more “metals,” or elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
(WASP-18b Has Smothering Stratosphere Without Water, NASA)
Blue samples helium; blue-green oxygen, and red nitrogen and hydrogen.
(Hubble Views a Colorful Demise of a Sun-like Star, NASA)
Investigators determined that a helium tank had burst inside a liquid oxygen tank, triggering the explosion.
(SpaceX Completes Successful Rocket Launch, VOA News)
According to Irwin, Suffocation and exposure in the negative 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit) atmosphere made of mostly hydrogen, helium and methane would take its toll long before the smell.
(What Uranus Cloud Tops Have in Common With Rotten Eggs, NASA)
The abundances of other elements have been predicted to be similarly high in the atmospheres of giant exoplanets - especially oxygen, which is the most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium.
(Water common – yet scarce – in exoplanets, University of Cambridge)
