Norman lockyer biography

On 20 October 1868, Norman Lockyer discovered helium.

Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer was an English scientist and astronomer.

Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer was an English scientist and astronomer.

Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer was a British astronomer who in discovered in the Sun's atmosphere a previously unknown element that he named helium after.

Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (– 16 August ) was an English scientist and astronomer.

Joseph Norman Lockyer was born in Rugby, England, on May 17, He started working as a civil servant and pursued his interest in astronomy on an amateur.

Norman Lockyer, an English astronomer, was born May 17, Lockyer was fascinated by the new science of spectroscopy, invented in

Associate Curator of Chemistry Rupert Cole tells the story.

‘At last!’ exclaimed a weary Norman Lockyer to himself, as his fatigued eye finally accepted what it had witnessed.

Looking down his spectroscope, seeing a rogue yellow line in a spectrum of light from the sun, Lockyer realised he had discovered a new element – helium.

He then, according to the dramatic account of his discovery in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, ‘quitted the observatory to fetch my wife to endorse my observation’.

Lockyer’s wife Winifred was an active member of the Victorian scientific world, often translating popular science books from French to English.

As well as confirming her husband’s famous observations, she also accompanied him on an 1870 solar eclipse expedition to Sicily.

Winifred had married Norman Lockyer – a civil servant working for the War Office – in 1858.