Earth’s Core Might Contain Hidden Helium That Doesn’t Come From This World

[smfadmin (OP)]

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a63957276/earths-core-hidden-helium/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_pop&utm_medium=email&date=022825&utm_campaign=nl01_022825_HBU38735629&oo=&user_email=1e7f7a9239bb44f191dc979b8fe5e634e587dfe020b84a653d2040468a8b342b&GID=1e7f7a9239bb44f191dc979b8fe5e634e587dfe020b84a653d2040468a8b342b&utm_term=TEST-%20NEW%20TEST%20-%20Sending%20List%20-%20AM%20180D%20Clicks%2C%20NON%20AM%2090D%20Opens%2C%20Both%20Subbed%20Last%2030D

Feb 28, 2025 8:30 AM

Under that much pressure, it turns out that a few rules can, in fact, be broken.

Our planet’s core is made mostly of iron, but it might also contain primordial helium that formed just after the Big Bang.

Helium normally has trouble bonding with other elements, but researchers were able to crush atoms of iron and primordial helium together at extremely high heat and pressure to bond them in a diamond anvil.

Finding out that helium can bond with iron in extreme conditions may mean there is an entire reservoir of helium in our core.

Earth appears to be a chill blue planet, but deep down, it’s really a metalhead. Its outer core is mostly molten iron (and some nickel), while its inner core is a ‘solid’ iron orb (with traces of nickel). Heavy metal, however, is not the only thing on the playlist—as it turns out, there might be helium floating around in there.

Earth’s core is not as dense as pure iron, and studies have hypothesized that is because its outer core might contains lighter elements, such as carbon, oxygen, and silicon.

Now, a research team from the University of Tokyo and National Central University in Taiwan has found that the bulk of that ‘lighter element’ store is likely made of primordial helium, which bonded with some of the iron in the core when Earth was still forming billions of years ago.

This might sound impossible—helium is supposed to be an inert gas, and therefore isn’t great at the whole ‘bonding’ thing—but when the team laser-heated helium and iron to extremes in a diamond anvil cell, they found that the two elements could, in fact, bond.

SEAN GLADWELL//Getty Images