Mining the Moon’s Helium-3: The Key to a Quantum Computing and Energy Revolution
What Is Helium-3 and Why Is It So Important? Infographic: Helium-3 is continually generated by fusion reactions in the Sun and carried by the solar wind. The Moon, lacking a magnetic field, has absorbed this isotope for billions of years, whereas Earth’s magnetic field shields us from most Helium-3 interlune.space. Helium-3 (He-3) is a lightweight, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (regular helium-4 has two neutrons). On Earth it is extremely scarce – mostly a byproduct from the decay of tritium in nuclear weapons and reactors sciencefocus.com. In total, only a few dozen kilograms are produced