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Hamburger02
2 years ago

Xenon is the by far rarest element on Earth that is not radioactive. Because of its rarity, reaction inertia and non-radioactivity, it has never occurred anywhere and has never been discovered by chance at some point.

Only when the period system of the elements was created, it was found that it was there in the 5th. To the right, there should be a noble gas lying between Krypton and Radon. Therefore, in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris William Travers were specifically looking for this element. Previous attempts to find the gas from methoites and all other possible sources remained in vain.

Ramsey and Wiliam then examined liquefied air and disintegrated it into their components by destilation. Only when they further decomposed the distillate of krypton, they obtained minimal residues having a higher boiling point than krypton. They found the Xenon.

Helium wasn’t so hard to find. This was rather accidentally discovered by the spectral separation of the sunlight during a solar eclipse by the Frenchman Jules Janssen in 1868.

LeBonyt
2 years ago

Helium has a very low boiling point. And this was not technically feasible with -269 °C. Helium was discovered by the way in spectroscopically in the splitting up of the solar radiation. Therefore also the name Helium. And one assumed that helium only appears on the sun.

Tannibi
2 years ago

After all, helium is much more common.

You answer the question yourself.

Tannibi
2 years ago
Reply to  Benutzer13468

Helium was discovered before the Xenon.