{"id":258349,"date":"2025-03-13T14:12:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T14:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/a-new-iron-compound-hints-primordial-helium-hides-in-earths-core\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T14:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T14:12:21","slug":"a-new-iron-compound-hints-primordial-helium-hides-in-earths-core","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/a-new-iron-compound-hints-primordial-helium-hides-in-earths-core\/","title":{"rendered":"A new iron compound hints \u2018primordial\u2019 helium hides in Earth\u2019s core"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scientists have coaxed one of the universe\u2019s most stubborn elements into a new compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formed under intense pressures, the newly discovered compound<\/a> packs helium atoms into crystalline iron, researchers report February 25 in Physical Review Letters<\/em>. The compound joins a short list of materials that incorporate the normally unreactive element and suggests that helium from the early solar system could be stored in the iron that makes up Earth\u2019s core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helium is one of the least reactive elements on the periodic table. Like the other noble gases, helium doesn\u2019t gain or lose electrons easily and so does not normally form chemical compounds. But under extremely high pressures, helium can interact with a few other elements, including nitrogen and sodium<\/a> \u2014 and now iron, research shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An iron-helium compound, shown here in artificial color using a technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry, forms under high temperature and pressure. Blue and black areas mark the background, while the orange and red area represents the sample. <\/span>\u00a92025 Hirose et al. CC-BY-ND<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To make the new iron compound, physicist Kei Hirose of the University of Tokyo and his colleagues squeezed iron and helium together in a diamond anvil cell, a high-pressure device that subjected the elements to pressures greater than 50,000 Earth atmospheres and temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius. This compression formed crystals containing both iron and helium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The volume of the crystal formed was larger than that of a crystal of pure iron at the same pressure, the team found. The researchers attributed this increase to helium ions packing into interstitial sites, the tiny spaces between iron atoms in the crystal. But the helium atoms don\u2019t bond directly to iron \u2014 they\u2019re too unreactive, even at extreme conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n