Earth’s core could contain helium from the early solar system. The noble gas tucks into gaps in iron crystals under high pressure and temperature.

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

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

The team from the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) CataLight at the Universities of Ulm and Jena has now shown that iron ...

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 ...

That’s because spacecraft observations of the compounds had not identified traces of water, indicating the iron oxide must have appeared after all of Mars’ ancient lakes and rivers had evaporated.

The diamond anvil crushed iron and helium together under conditions mimicking those inside the Earth, to create a new compound. These compounds remained stable when pressures were reduced.

has been formed because the iron and sulfur atoms are now chemically bonded together. The new substance is called a compound. Other compounds are made from different combinations of atoms ...