Helium — the recluse of the periodic table — is reluctant to react with other elements. But squeeze the element hard enough, and it will form a chemical compound with sodium, scientists report.

The helium-sodium compound could therefore give us insight into what chemistry might be like inside other planets, the paper’s authors write, since those gas giants have plenty of helium.

Helium plays a 'nanny' role in forming chemical compounds under pressure Helium, a noble gas, was long believed to be 'too aloof' to react with the other elements Date: March 19, 2018 ...

By exposing helium and sodium to atmospheric pressure 1.1 million times more than Earth’s, they were able to create the compound Na2He. Na2He. Image Credit: Artem R. Oganov / Eurekalert ...

The new study, “Reactivity of He with ionic compounds under high pressure,” was published on March 5 in Nature Communications. The work was inspired by a 2017 study in which a different research team ...

Deep within giant planets, helium may form stable compounds with other elements, a new study finds — something that was long thought never to happen in nature. Skip to main content.

An international research team has reported the synthesis of a helium-sodium compound that’s stable at high pressures (Nat. Chem. 2017, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2716). Helium’s best known feature is ...

Inert gas helium, famous for its reluctance to react with other elements, has produced a very stable new compound called sodium helide.This feat was achieved by subjecting helium to high pressure ...

We often wonder what life and environmental conditions would be like on other planets. Scientists have speculated scenarios both similar to what we have on Earth and also completely different from ...

Both helium and methane are major components of icy giant planets, however, whether they can react with each other is still an open question. Recently, scientists based in China and UK ...

Helium, the most noble of the noble gases, long thought to be completely inert and thus too standoffish to bond with other atoms, recently surprised chemists by forming chemical compounds after all.