Helium was found in sunlight 27 years before anyone found it on Earth

During the 1868 solar eclipse, astronomers Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyer independently spotted a bright yellow line in the Sun's spectrum that matched no known element. Lockyer named it helium after the Greek sun god — the gas wasn't isolated on Earth until 1895.

— Norman Lockyer & Pierre Janssen, On the Spectrum of the Solar Prominences — Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1868