Which is your favourite chemical element? To mark the International Year of the Periodic Table, our science journalists will be arguing for their pick from the 118 known elements. In this instalment, ...

Artificial atoms allow scientists to push the laws of physics to the limit, gaining insight into what we are familiar with already and what we are yet to discover. Researchers have now created a new ...

Neutral helium microscopy and atom optics constitute an innovative imaging paradigm that exploits low-energy, charge-neutral helium atoms to non-destructively investigate surface properties at the ...

Physicists have created the first-ever atomic vortex beam — a swirling tornado of atoms and molecules with mysterious properties that have yet to be understood. By sending a straight beam of helium ...

Population III (PopIII) stars represent astronomy's ultimate prize: the first generation of stars born from the pristine hydrogen and helium created in the Big Bang. These theoretical giants, ...

Discovered in the 1800s in the solar spectrum, helium has been an element that has eluded humans for centuries. Despite being listed as one of the most abundant elements in the universe, this noble ...

Throughout the mid-1800s, improvements on the spectroscope allowed physicists to more accurately measure the wavelengths of light and identify new elements—like helium. Wikimedia Commons “I have ...