Helium was first observed as an element in the Sun's spectrum in 1868 by the French astronomer Jules Janssen and the English astronomer Norman Lockyer independently. Janssen detected a bright yellow spectral line during a solar eclipse, which Lockyer also observed and identified as a new element, naming it helium after the Greek word for the Sun. On Earth, helium was first isolated in 1895 by Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay while treating the mineral cleveite with mineral acids. At the same time, chemists Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langlet in Sweden independently isolated helium and determined its atomic weight. Thus, helium's "discovery" spans both its first identification in the Sun and its later isolation on Earth.
