What chemical element was first discovered on the Sun and then on Earth?
On August 18, 1868, the French scientist Pierre Janssen, during a total solar eclipse in the Indian city of Guntur, first explored the chromosphere of the Sun. Spectroscopy revealed a very bright yellow line, which was mistaken for the D line of sodium. Later it was found that this is not the case. Two years later, Lockyer, together with the English chemist Edward Frankland, in collaboration with whom he worked, proposed to give the new element the name “helium”.
Only 27 years after its initial discovery, helium was discovered on Earth – in 1895, Scottish chemist William Ramkach, examining a sample of gas obtained from the decomposition of the mineral cleveite, found in its spectrum the same bright yellow line found earlier in the solar spectrum.