Hot air balloons, blimps, car airbag systems, welding, leak detection, scuba breathing mixtures, and NASA space shuttles all use helium. Cryogenics, which includes cooling for particle accelerators and detectors, consumes 28 percent of helium in the United States, with half of that chilling tens of thousands of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI, machines. And the market is growing.

At the turn of the 20th century, natural gas miners found helium coming from underground, produced by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium. It appears in pockets of natural gas in small portions, with three percent helium considered a good ratio. Although helium is relatively easy to extract, it falls on the natural gas companies to capture the gas or let it go.

Lighter than air, helium released from the Earth escapes the atmosphere into space. As the second-smallest atom in the universe, the cunning gas finds its freedom through almost any opening, joint or crack, eventually leaking out of party balloons and even passing through some types of glass. Like oil, coal, and natural gas, Earth’s supply of helium will inevitably run out.

While the physics community is aware of this impending problem, says Fermilab cryogenic engineer Tom Peterson, “we’re just not sure what to do.”