Keele Astrophysicists find solid buckyballs in space

Professor Nye Evans, Astrophysics, led a team of astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope who have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space.

Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos. The new work, led by Professor Evans, appears in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and has attracted worldwide press coverage.

Buckyballs are named after their resemblance to the architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. They are made up of 60 carbon molecules arranged into a hollow sphere like a football. Their unusual structure makes them ideal candidates for electrical and chemical applications on Earth, including superconducting materials, medicines, water purification and armour.

In the latest discovery, the team of scientists, including Keele's Jacco van Loon, using Spitzer, detected tiny particles of matter consisting of stacked buckyballs. They found the particles around a pair of stars called XX Ophiuchi, 6,500 light-years from Earth, and detected enough to fill the equivalent in volume to 10,000 Mount Everests.

"These buckyballs are stacked together to form a solid, like oranges in a crate," said Professor Evans. "The particles we detected are miniscule, far smaller than the width of a hair, but each one would contain stacks of millions of buckyballs."