Buckyballs are vast molecular congeries of carbon atoms in the shape of soccer chunk , and it turns out infinite is absolutely stream with them . It ’s quite potential that animation on Earth could n’t have happened without these wonderfully - named buckminsterfullerene .
If “ buckyball ” seems like an unusually whacky name , even by scientific touchstone , at least know that it has a highly hefty namesake . Buckyballs – and their alternative name , fullerene – are named after designer Buckminster Fuller , because their shape is very similar to his iconic geodesic bonce , such as the exterior to Spaceship Earth at EPCOT . These little sphere connect together 60 carbon atoms into a single mega - molecule , and they were first discovered in labs 25 eld ago .
Last yr , NASA ’s Spitzer Space Telescope was able-bodied to confirm the existence of buckyballs in distance , but astronomers had no path to judge their relative amount – was this a rare uncovering , or one of many plentiful second-stringer of buckyballs ? Now we know – the universe is perfectly pack with buckyballs , as Spitzer turned up the speck throughout the Milky Way , as well as a reservation in a nearby galaxy that was fifteen sentence the mass of the Moon . That ’s a lot of carbon molecules , even when each one is made up of 60 speck .
The sheer quantity of the buckminsterfullerene is n’t the only exciting bit . The uncovering also shows that buckyballs can spring in nebulae copious in hydrogen , whereas it ’s impossible to make buckyball in science laboratory when H is present because it foul the carbon paper irons . It ’s not entirely clear why it ’s potential to do this out in space and not in the lab , but it means buckyballs are found where new stars form , which might also mean they ’re around as life begins to organise on any of a new star ’s planets that fall in its habitable zona .
Indeed , the buckyballs were also receive in large quantities in the blank space between young ace , which might excuse how the molecules go from being out in outer space to carried on passing meteors and comets , which can then deposit them on a virtuoso ’s planet by crashing into them . This might well have been part of the story of how living began on Earth , as buckminsterfullerene can bring lots of life-sustaining material .
Beyond all that atomic number 6 , which is central to any constitutional molecule , their noggin - comparable anatomical structure mean the carbon atom can collectively play like a cage , trammel other atoms and molecules that could be useful in the formation of life . Researcher Letizia Stanghellini explain :
“ Buckyballs are sort of like diamond with holes in the middle . They are incredibly static molecules that are punishing to demolish , and they could carry other interesting molecules inside them . We hope to learn more about the important role they likely bet in the death and birth of stars and planets , and maybe even life story itself . ”
[ Space.com ]
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