The Week in SpaceMay 16-22, 2011
 Elementary Discovery Astronomers have developed ingenious ways to wring information out of the light they observe from distant objects. Using a spectroscope, for example, they dissected sunlight into its component spectrum and compared it to the unique spectra of known elements. But during the solar eclipse of 1868, both Joseph Lockyer and Pierre Janssen independently detected an element in the Sun’s spectrum that was as yet unknown on Earth. Lockyer, who was born 175 years ago this week, proposed the name helium, after the Greek helios, meaning Sun. Not discovered on Earth until 1895, helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe, after hydrogen. In this narrow-band SOHO image of the Sun, light from doubly-ionized helium reveals the delicate structure of enormous erupting prominences. Image credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA) Weekly CalendarMay 16-22, 2011Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
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