US astronomers discover buckyballs in space

LOS ANGELES. October 28. KAZINFORM Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered bucket loads of buckyballs in space, the Jet Propulsion Loboratory (JPL) said on Wednesday; Kazinform refers to China Daily.

The buckyballs were detected between stars and around three dying sun-like stars, called planetary nebulae, in our own Milky Way galaxy, according to the JPL in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

These cloudy objects, made up of material shed from the dying stars, are similar to the one where Spitzer found the first evidence for their existence, the JPL said.

What's more, Spitzer detected buckyballs around a fourth dying star in a nearby galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud in staggering quantities - the equivalent in mass to about 15 of our moons, said the JPL.

Buckyballs, also known as fullerenes, are soccer-ball-shaped molecules consisting of 60 linked carbon atoms. They are named for their resemblance to the architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes.

The miniature spheres were first discovered in a lab on Earth 25 years ago, but it wasn't until this past July that Spitzer was able to provide the first confirmed proof of their existence in space. At that time, scientists weren't sure if they had been lucky to find a rare supply, or if perhaps the cosmic balls were all around; Kazinform cites China Daily.

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