…when poor jonny lets go of the string and watches, crying, as his balloon sails off into the sunset. does it go up until it reaches a point where the air density is equal that of the helium inside, or does it eventually pop as the helium expands? is there a layer up there with 1000’s of them all floating about? answers below please, thanks

The helium leaks out…. they fall to land/sea where they’re ingested by marine life & sometimes farm animals. Its not usually a good result for the animal.

alternatively, they get collected by mad canadians who see a way to avoid helicopter fees 🙂

They all seem to end up in the hedgerows of Mid-Wales from my experience. Seems to be the acceptable face of littering and a waste of an essential resource that we can’t make more of.

As above. Although if one managed to rise far enough by avoiding downdraughts and the like it’d probably burst when the pressure got low enough. With the same end result.

It’s the helium ballon thief elf in the sky.

They are melted by Chinese Lanterns

they get collected by mad canadians who see a way to avoid helicopter fees

don’t get it. 😐

don’t get it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33414264

The helium molecules pass through the molecular matrix of the envelope and they slowly lose volume and buoyancy. Similar to the air in latex inner tubes.

Aliens use them for sexy parties.

As above, they gradually leak and fall to earth.

However, did you know the helium carries on rising until escapes into space?

Helium is a finite resource and we will eventually run out.

Remember the hole in the ozone layer? It was filled by helium baloons which is why it’s no longer in the news.

How many baloons worth of helium have we got left to play with ?

Something like 60 years supply in total, proven, IIRC? But helium balloons are a small proportion of usage and there’s some much larger sources of wastage. Apparently the main problem’s more or less an economic distortion, the USA has huge helium reserves which it’s been selling off, suppressing price and making it cheap enough to waste, or to use where other substances could be used. Seems likely usage will fall if it rises to a natural market value

In the longer term we’ll just cloudscoop it out of the gas giants, and switch to explosive hydrogen balloons, which will be awesome.

On and then we lose all super cooled magnets, bye bye MRI scans for example

As of 2011 the world’s helium reserves were estimated at 40 billion cubic meters

I reckon we’ll get to the end of the month.

How come they didn’t arrest Carl Fredricksen?

To expand on Northwind’s comment – USA selling all Helium reserves by 2015.

Given that helium is lighter than air why does it not all float away any way?

Is it stuck underground?

Given that helium is lighter than air why does it not all float away any way?

Obvious innit

Given that helium is lighter than air why does it not all float away any way?

It does, once it gets into the air.

Is it stuck underground?

Currently yes. I think it is there because of radiactive decay. Things like uranium (created in supernovae of the first generation of stars in the universe) decay into various other elements and isotopes, producing some helium on the way. This hangs around in the rock itself, until eventuall it seeps into.. I dunno.. some place it can be extracted?

*off to google*

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/this-guy-got-arrested-in-alberta-for-flying-in-a-lawn-chair-attached-to-balloons

It’s normally distilled from natural gas. (it’s basically the same process as the oil fractional distillation you probably did in school) So I suppose fracking could unlock more, good old fracking.

It takes days for helium to leak out of a balloon. They will rise and expand as the air pressure decreases until they eventually burst and fall into a hedgerow in Wales.

You could test it by strapping your go pro to one and letting it go.

Hardly ever seen a helium balloon in the hedgerows……….plenty of McDonalds bags and Red Bull cans however ……..grrrr