Helium-4

Helium-4 (He) is a stable isotope of the element helium. It is by far the more abundant of the two naturally occurring isotopes of helium, making up virtually all the helium on Earth. Its nucleus consists of two protons and two neutrons and is identical to an alpha particle. Helium-4 makes up about one quarter of the ordinary matter in the universe by mass, with almost all of the rest being hydrogen. While nuclear fusion in stars also produces helium-4, most of the helium-4 in the Sun and in the universe is thought to have been produced during the Big Bang, known as "primordial helium". However, primordial helium-4 is largely absent from the Earth, having escaped during the high-temperature phase of Earth's formation. On Earth, most naturally occurring helium-4 is produced by the alpha decay of heavy elements in the Earth's crust, after the planet cooled and solidified. When liquid helium-4 is cooled to below 2.17 K (−270.98 °C), it becomes a superfluid, with properties very different from those of an ordinary liquid. For example, if superfluid helium-4 is placed in an open vessel, a thin Rollin film will climb the sides of the vessel, causing the liquid to escape. The total spin of the helium-4 nucleus is an integer (zero), making it a boson.