Stars reveal carbon 'spaceballs'

Scientists have detected the largest molecules ever seen in space, in a cloud of cosmic dust surrounding a distant star.

The football-shaped carbon molecules are known as buckyballs, and were only discovered on Earth 25 years ago when they were made in a laboratory.

These molecules are the "third type of carbon" - with the first two types being graphite and diamond.

The researchers report their findings in the journal Science.

Buckyballs consist of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a sphere. The atoms are linked together in alternating patterns of hexagons and pentagons that, on the molecular scale, look exactly like a football.

They belong to a class of molecules called buckminsterfullerenes - named after the architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, who developed the geodesic dome design that they so closely resemble.

The research group, led by Jan Cami from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, made its discovery using Nasa's Spitzer infrared telescope.

Professor Cami and his colleagues were not specifically looking for buckyballs, but spotted their unmistakable infrared "signature".

"They oscillate and vibrate in lots of different ways, and in doing so they interact with infrared light at very specific wavelengths," explained Professor Cami.

When the telescope detected emissions at those wavelengths, Professor Cami knew he was looking a signal from the largest molecules ever found in space.

"Some of my undergraduate students call me a world record holder," he told BBC News. "But I don't think there's a record for that." ...

via BBC News - Stars reveal carbon 'spaceballs'.