French astronomer Pierre Janssen travels to Guntur in the Bay of Bengal, hosted by the British governor of the province, to witness a solar eclipse. When darkness envelops the observers, his spectroscope records five or six spectral lines, including an unknown one: helium. However, the element still has no name, a name that will be given to it a couple of months later by Englishman Norman Lockyer, who, comparing his observations with Janssen’s, confirms them and, assuming that this new element is found only on the Sun, names it helium.
