NEW YORK (AP) — Thanksgiving may make you think about turkey and pumpkin pie. But you might also think about helium.
After all, that lighter-than-air gas is the reason that Snoopy, Spider-Man and the other big balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade soar above the crowd.
Here are a few facts about helium: It forms in the ground, and is recovered by being separated out from natural gas. It is shipped all over the world, so that the stuff in the parade balloons might come from such places as Kansas, Africa or Australia.
And the volume of helium used in the parade is enough to fill 600,000 to 700,000 Mylar party balloons.
