Noble gas periods of the periodic table, the noble gases are exactly the members of group 18. Noble gases are typically highly unreactive except when under particular extreme conditions. The inertness of noble gases makes them very suitable in applications where reactions are not wanted. For example, argon is used in incandescent lamps to prevent the hot tungsten filament from oxidizing; also, helium is used in breathing gas by deep-sea divers to prevent oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide (hypercapnia) toxicity. The properties of the noble gases can be well explained by modern theories of atomic structure: their outer shell of valence electrons
Atmosphere of Uranus from the analysis of "Voyager 2" far infrared and radio occultation observations. The currently accepted value is in the upper troposphere, which corresponds to a mass fraction . This value is very close to the protosolar helium mass fraction of , indicating that helium has not settled towards the centre of the planet as it has in the gas giants. The third most abundant constituent of the Uranian atmosphere is methane , the presence of which has been known for some time as a result of the ground-based spectroscopic observations. Methane possesses prominent absorption bands in the visible and near-infrared,