Krypton was discovered in 1898 by Scottish chemist William Ramsay and English chemist Morris Travers, working in Britain.

Quick Scoop: Who Discovered Krypton?

Krypton didn’t appear first in a comic book panel; it appeared in a lab. In 1898, William Ramsay and Morris Travers isolated a mysterious residue while carefully evaporating nearly all components of liquid air, and that residue turned out to be the new noble gas krypton. They had already been hunting for unknown gases in air, and this work eventually helped earn Ramsay the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering several inert gases.

Key facts

  • Discoverers: William Ramsay (Scottish chemist) and Morris Travers (English chemist).
  • Year of discovery: 1898.
  • Place: Britain (London), working with residue from liquid air.
  • Method: They boiled away known gases (water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen, helium, argon) from air until a tiny leftover fraction revealed new spectral lines—this hidden component was krypton.
  • Name origin: From Greek “kryptos,” meaning “hidden,” reflecting how well concealed it was in ordinary air.

Mini Timeline

  1. Ramsay and colleagues had already helped discover argon and other gases in air, realizing more “inert” gases might exist.
  1. In May 1898, Ramsay and Travers evaporated nearly all of liquid air and examined the faint remaining gas.
  1. Spectral analysis showed lines that did not match any known element, confirming a new noble gas: krypton.
  1. A few weeks later, using similar methods, they also discovered neon (and later xenon), rounding out more of the noble gas family.

Brief context vs. pop culture

If you’re thinking of Superman’s home planet “Krypton” or “kryptonite,” that’s fiction inspired by the element’s name, not the scientific discovery itself. In real-world chemistry, krypton is a rare noble gas found in air at about one part per million and used in specialized lighting and research equipment, not for weakening superheroes.

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