JPL: Spitzer Finds Elusive Buckyballs in Space

[bystander]

Spitzer Finds Elusive Buckyballs in Space
NASA JPL | Spitzer Mission News | 22 July 2010

Space Balls

Click to view full size image

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has at last found buckyballs in space, as illustrated by this artist's conception showing the carbon balls coming out from the type of object where they were discovered -- a dying star and the material it sheds, known as a planetary nebula.

Buckyballs are made up of 60 carbon atoms organized into spherical structures that resemble soccer balls. They also look like Buckminister Fuller's architectural domes, hence their official name of buckministerfullerenes. The molecules were first concocted in a lab nearly 25 years ago, and were theorized at that time to be floating around carbon-rich stars in space.

But it wasn't until now that Spitzer, using its sensitive infrared vision, was able to find convincing signs of buckyballs. The telescope found the molecules -- as well as their elongated, rugby-ball-like relatives, called C₇₀ -- in the material around a dying star, or planetary nebula, called Tc 1. The star at the center of Tc 1 was once similar to our sun but as it aged, it sloughed off its outer layers, leaving only a dense white-dwarf star. Astronomers believe buckyballs were created in shed layers of carbon that blew off the star.

Tc 1 does not show up that well in images, so a picture of the NGC 2440 nebula, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, was used in this artist's conception.

Illustration credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)
Hubble image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI

Jiggling Soccer-Ball Molecules in Space

Click to view full size image

These data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show the signatures of buckyballs in space. Buckyballs, also called C60 or buckministerfullerenes, after architect Buckminister Fuller's geodesic domes, are made of 60 carbon atoms structured like a black-and-white soccer ball. They were first discovered in a lab in 1985, but could not be definitively identified in space until now. Spitzer was able to find their spectral signatures -- along with the signatures of their rugby-ball-like relatives, called C70 -- by analyzing the infrared light from Tc 1, a planetary nebula consisting of material shed by a dying star.

Buckyballs jiggle, or vibrate, in a variety of ways -- 174 ways to be exact. Four of these vibrational modes cause the molecules to either absorb or emit infrared light. All four modes were detected by Spitzer.

The space telescope first gathered light from the area around the dying star -- specifically a region rich in carbon -- then, with the help of its spectrograph instrument, spread the light into its various components, or wavelengths. Astronomers studied the data, a spectrum like the one shown here, to identify signatures, or fingerprints, of molecules. The four vibrational modes of buckyballs are indicated by the red arrows. Likewise, Spitzer identified four vibrational modes of C70, shown by the blue arrows.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/J. Cami (Univ. of Western Ontario/SETI Institute)

Buckyballs Jiggle Like Jello (video)
Mini Soccer Balls in Space (video)

[bystander]

Before Art beats me to it:

SPACEBALLS

]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[owlice]

Before Art beats me to it:

lol!!

[neufer]

Before Art beats me to it:

May the Schpitzer be with you, Bucky!

[Beyond]

Looks more like the "schwartz" was with bystander this day.

[orin stepanek]

What good are buckyballs? Do they bounce? There so far out you can't get to them anyway.

[neufer]

What good are buckyballs? Do they bounce? There so far out you can't get to them anyway.

Sounds like a question for The Great Carboni.

[rstevenson]

What good are buckyballs? Do they bounce? There so far out you can't get to them anyway.

Fullerenes are -- or will be when we can make enough of them -- very useful.

Rob

[neufer]

Astronomers Find Largest Molecules Ever Known in Space
By JR Minkel SPACE.com Contributor : 22 July 2010

<<Astronomers have found evidence of buckyballs - carbon molecules shaped like soccer balls - in the nebula around a distant white dwarf star. The discovery marks the largest molecules known to exist in space. Normally found in chemistry labs, where they are made by vaporizing graphite in the presence of helium, buckyballs were long suspected to form inside stars. "As soon as they were discovered in the lab it was actually suggested they would be very good candidates to be found in space," astronomer Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, who led the new study, told SPACE.com.

Researchers had searched for buckyballs before in the gas and dust between and around stars, but the evidence was inconclusive. Cami and his colleagues identified buckyball molecules, known as C₆₀ because they are made of 60 carbon atoms each. The buckyballs are about 1 nanometer in size, about three times larger than water molecules, which are about 0.3 nanometers in size and consist of three atoms (one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms). One nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or about one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair.

The buckyball molecules were discovered in the planetary nebula Tc-1, which is about 6,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Ara. Despite their name, planetary nebulas are actually clouds of gas around stars, not planets.

"What we see is a very clean and very recognizable fingerprint for only two species," Cami said - C₆₀ and a closely related molecule called C₇₀, made of 70 carbon atoms. Both C₆₀ and C₇₀ belong to a class of molecules termed buckminsterfullerenes, or just fullerenes, after architect Buckminster Fuller. Together the two fullerenes make up about 3 percent of the available carbon around the star, the researchers reported.

Tc-1 contains what is known as an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star. The inner regions of these stars have become dense, dim stars called white dwarfs, while their outer stellar envelopes have sloughed off. The resulting cloud of shed layers undergoes chemical reactions and is ionized by radiation from the inner white dwarf, creating a planetary nebula that will eventually become part of the interstellar medium.

The new finding came when a colleague of Cami's was looking at infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Every molecule in space soaks up infrared light at a unique set of wavelengths, resulting in a kind of chemical fingerprint. "He had this one object that looked very strange to him," Cami said. "The spectrum didn't look quite like anything he had seen before."

Normally the nebula around an AGB star will contain hydrogen, which inhibits the reaction that produces fullerenes, and also tends to obscure any signal from the molecules. The researchers think C₆₀ and C₇₀ were able to form on sooty dust grains because the Tc-1 nebula lacked hydrogen gas. Based on the observed temperature of the fullerenes, they estimate that the molecules formed within the past 100 years and would likely be undetectable in another 100 years.

The finding "shows that complex, large molecules can exist in space," said astrophysicist Theodore Snow of the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was not involved in the research. "Buckyballs are very stable and resistant to interstellar ultraviolet radiation, so once formed they can have long lifetimes in space.">>

[bystander]

Spitzer Goes Buck Wild and Finds Buckyballs Floating Between the Stars
NASA JPL Spitzer | 27 Oct 2010

[url=http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/3417-sig10-022-Buckyballs-in-Space][b]Buckyballs in Space[/b][/url] [i](Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC/Caltech))[/i]

---

Fresh after finding buckyballs around an aging star, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has now detected these intriguing, miniature-soccer-ball-shaped molecules in interstellar space for the first time.

With these new results, the buckyball claims the record for the largest molecule ever discovered floating between the stars. The unique properties of buckyballs that have made these rounded particles such a hot area of research here on Earth also offer up some exciting possibilities for cosmic chemistry.

"Buckyballs are carbon molecules in the shape of a cage and they are very tough and hard to destroy," said Kris Sellgren, a professor of astronomy at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. She noted that although life forms, let alone a single molecule of DNA, absolutely dwarf a buckyball, "single atoms or small molecules can become trapped and can survive inside the cage while the buckyball safely travels through the harsh conditions of space."

In this way, buckyballs can provide chemical "messages in a bottle," preserving records of gas present in stellar or interstellar environments. Buckyballs with extraterrestrial gases trapped inside them, for example, have previously been found in meteorites that have slammed into Earth. Spotting buckyballs in interstellar space also reveals that relatively big molecules can persist and maybe even form in the diffuse, unforgiving voids between the stars.

C₆₀ in Reflection Nebulae - K Sellgren et al

• Astrophysical Journal Letters 722(1) L54 (10 Oct 2010) DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/722/1/L54
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1009.0539 > 02 Sep 2010

Space Buckyballs Thrive, Finds NASA Spitzer Telescope
NASA JPL Spitzer | 27 Oct 2010

[url=http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/3420-ssc2010-09a-Extragalactic-Space-Balls][b]Extragalactic Space Balls[/b][/url] [i](Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC/Caltech))[/i]

---

Astronomers have discovered bucket loads of buckyballs in space. They used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to find the little carbon spheres throughout our Milky Way galaxy -- in the space between stars and around three dying stars. What's more, Spitzer detected buckyballs around a fourth dying star in a nearby galaxy in staggering quantities -- the equivalent in mass to about 15 of our moons.

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, an example of which is found at the entrance to Disney's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Fla. 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 (see http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-243). 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.

"It turns out that buckyballs are much more common and abundant in the universe than initially thought," said astronomer Letizia Stanghellini of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. "Spitzer had recently found them in one specific location, but now we see them in other environments. This has implications for the chemistry of life. It's possible that buckyballs from outer space provided seeds for life on Earth."

Formation of fullerenes in H-containing Planetary Nebulae - DA Garcia-Hernandez et al

• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1009.4357 > 22 Sep 2010 (v1), 07 Oct 2010 (v3)

Buckyballs Discovered in Another Galaxy
National Optical Astronomy Observatory | 27 Oct 2010

[b][i]Credit: Pete Marenfeld (NOAO)[/i][/b]

---

Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have detected arrangements of carbon atoms known as buckyballs outside of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time. Sir Harry Kroto of Florida State University, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering buckyballs, says life may even owe its existence to the atom “cages” which resemble soccer balls. The discovery of buckyballs in the Small Magellanic Cloud suggests that these complex molecules may be present around many stars where it was predicted they would be unlikely to form. Extensive follow-up studies using ground-based telescopes will be used to establish the conditions helpful for the formation of buckyballs in our galaxy and other galaxies.

Letizia Stanghellini of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, and her team from Europe used Spitzer telescope data to find the characteristic infrared signature of spherical fullerenes called buckyballs in four planetary nebulae. The fullerenes are created in the shells of gas and dust ejected from the dying stars at the center of these often-photogenic nebulae.
...
Around one star observed by the Stanghellini team, the total mass of C₆₀, a common type of fullerene, is more than 3 times the mass of the planet Mercury. These carbon compounds are dispersed around the star and may form on small grains of dust in the material ejected from the star.

Using the Spitzer Infrared Spectrometer instrument, the team searched in dozens of planetary nebulae that were known to have hydrogen-rich shells of gas that had been ejected from the dying star. This ejected material contains carbon grains (much like soot) that had condensed farther from the star. In this cooling process, and under the exposure to ultraviolet radiation, the grains not only can form fullerenes but other carbon molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) – which can be created on Earth in the exhaust of diesel engines.

[Ann]

Buckminsterfullerene! I love the name. I think it honors a man named Buckminster Fuller, famous for his geodesic domes.

What I really love about the name is that it sounds so exquisitely English. I mean, you have the "Buck" from Buckingham Palace and the "minster" from Westminster Abbey! Does it get more English?


+

Click to view full size image

=


(I know, I know, it's Great Britain on the left and England on the right, but, oh well...)

And because I feel so giddily in love with England right at this moment, how can I resist this?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THYgeETr ... re=related[/youtube]

And buckminsterfullerene on top!

Ann

[bystander]

Has Graphene Been Detected in Space?
National Optical Astronomy Observatory | 2011 Aug 10

[i]Artist’s impression of the graphenes (C24) and fullerenes found in a Planetary Nebula. The detection of graphenes and fullerenes around old stars as common as our Sun suggests that these molecules and other allotropic forms of carbon may be widespread in space. (Credits: IAC; original image of the Helix Nebula (NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner, STScI, & T.A. Rector, NRAO))[/i]

---

---

A team of astronomers, using the Spitzer Space Telescope, have reported the first extragalactic detection of the C70 fullerene molecule, and the possible detection of planar C24 (“a piece of graphene”) in space. Letizia Stanghellini and Richard Shaw, members of the team at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona describe how collisional shocks powered by the winds from old stars in planetary nebulae could be responsible for the formation of fullerenes (C60 and C70) and graphene (planar C24). The team is led by Domingo Aníbal García-Hernández of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain and includes international astronomers and biochemists.

Planetary nebulae originate from stars similar to our sun that have reached the end of their lives and are shedding shells of gas into space. In this case, the planetary nebulae are located in the Magellanic Clouds, two satellite galaxies to our own Milky Way, that are best seen from the Southern Hemisphere. At the distance of the Magellanic Clouds, planetary nebula appear as small fuzzy blobs. However, unlike planetaries in our own Milky Way Galaxy whose distances are very uncertain, the distance to planetaries in the Magellanic Clouds can be determined to better than 5%. With such accurate distances, the research team determined the true luminosity of the stars and confirmed that the objects are indeed planetary nebulae and not some other object in the astrophysical zoo.

Fullerenes, or Buckyballs, are known from laboratory work on earth, and have many interesting and important properties. Fullerenes consist of carbon atoms arranged in a three dimensional sphere similar to the geodesic domes popularized by Buckminster Fuller. The C70 fullerene can be compared with a rugby ball, while C60 is compared to a soccer ball. Both of these molecules have been detected in the sample. Graphene (planar C24) is a flat sheet of carbon atoms, one atom thick, that has extraordinary strength, conductivity, elasticity and thinness. Cited as the thinnest substance known, graphene was first synthesized in the lab in 2004 by Geim and Novoselov for which they received the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics. “If confirmed with laboratory spectroscopy – something that is almost impossible with the present techniques – this would be the first detection of graphene in space” said team member García-Hernández.

The team has proposed that fullerenes and graphene are formed from the shock-induced (i.e., grain-grain collisions) destruction of hydrogenated amorphous carbon grains (HACs). Such collisions are expected in the stellar winds emanating from planetary nebulae, and this team sees evidence for strong stellar winds in the ultraviolet spectra of these stars. “What is particularly surprising is that the existence of these molecules does not depend on the stellar temperature, but on the strength of the wind shocks” says Stanghellini.

The Small Magellanic cloud is particularly poor in metals (any element besides hydrogen and helium, in astronomers’ parlance) but this sort of environment favors the evolution of carbon rich-planetary nebulae, which turns out to be a favorable place for complex carbon molecules. The challenge has been to extract the evidence for graphene (planar C24) from Spitzer data. “The Spitzer Space Telescope has been amazingly important for studying complex organic molecules in stellar environments” says Stanghellini. “We are now at the stage of not only detecting fullerenes and other molecules, but starting to understand how they form and evolve in stars.” Shaw adds “We are planning ground-based follow up through the NOAO system of telescopes. We hope to find other molecules in planetary nebulae where fullerene has been detected to test some physical processes that might help us understand the biochemistry of life.”

The accompanying image includes an artist’s conception of these molecules superimposed on the well known Helix Nebula. The smaller image shows one of the objects from this study in which fullerene has been detected in the Large Magellanic Cloud (SMP 48, from the catalog by Sanduleak, MacConnell, & Philip) The name “Planetary Nebula” was applied to these star systems because their shell of surrounding gas made them appear like the disks of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus as observed in 18th century telescopes. The reason for this name is obvious from the modern image.

The formation of fullerenes: clues from new C₆₀, C₇₀, and (possible) planar C₂₄ detections

• in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae - DA Garcia-Hernandez et al
  Astrophysical Journal Letters 737(2) L30 (2011 Aug 20) DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/737/2/L30
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1107.2595 > 13 Jul 2011

Graphenes In Spaaaaaace!
Universe Today | Tammy Plotner | 2011 Aug 11

Honeycomb Carbon Crystals Possibly Detected in Space
NASA JPL-Caltech | Spitzer | 2011 Aug 15

Graphene and Buckyballs Might Be Lurking in Space
Discovery News | Jennifer Ouellette | 2011 Aug 24

[bystander]

NASA's Spitzer Finds Solid Buckyballs in Space
NASA | JPL-Caltech | RAS | Spitzer | 2012 Feb 22

[url=http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/4923-ssc2012-03a-Building-a-Buckyball-Particle-in-Space][b][i]Building a Buckyball Particle in Space[/i][/b][/url] [i](Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)[/i]

---

[url=http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/4926-ssc2012-03b-Stacking-Buckyballs-in-Space][b][i]Stacking Buckyballs in Space[/i][/b][/url] [i](Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)[/i]

---

---

Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope 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.

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

In the latest discovery, scientists using Spitzer detected tiny specks of matter, or particles, 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 Nye Evans of Keele University in England, lead author of a paper appearing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "The particles we detected are miniscule, far smaller than the width of a hair, but each one would contain stacks of millions of buckyballs."

Buckyballs were detected definitively in space for the first time by Spitzer in 2010. Spitzer later identified the molecules in a host of different cosmic environments. It even found them in staggering quantities, the equivalent in mass to 15 Earth moons, in a nearby galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud.

In all of those cases, the molecules were in the form of gas. The recent discovery of buckyballs particles means that large quantities of these molecules must be present in some stellar environments in order to link up and form solid particles. The research team was able to identify the solid form of buckyballs in the Spitzer data because they emit light in a unique way that differs from the gaseous form.

"This exciting result suggests that buckyballs are even more widespread in space than the earlier Spitzer results showed," said Mike Werner, project scientist for Spitzer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "They may be an important form of carbon, an essential building block for life, throughout the cosmos."

Buckyballs have been found on Earth in various forms. They form as a gas from burning candles and exist as solids in certain types of rock, such as the mineral shungite found in Russia, and fulgurite, a glassy rock from Colorado that forms when lightning strikes the ground. In a test tube, the solids take on the form of dark, brown "goo."

"The window Spitzer provides into the infrared universe has revealed beautiful structure on a cosmic scale," said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "In yet another surprise discovery from the mission, we're lucky enough to see elegant structure at one of the smallest scales, teaching us about the internal architecture of existence."

Solid-phase C₆₀ in the peculiar binary XX Oph? - A. Evans et al

• Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters (online 07 Feb 2012) DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2012.01213.x
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1112.0518 > 02 Dec 2011 (v1), 23 Dec 2011 (v2)

Cosmic Buckyball Particle 'Factory' Discovered
Discovery News | Ian O'Neill | 2012 Feb 22

Solid Buckyballs in Space are Stacked Like ‘Oranges in a Crate’
Universe Today | Nancy Atkinson | 2012 Feb 22

[bystander]

Molecular Striptease Explains Buckyballs in Space
Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) | 2014 Dec 09

[attachment=0]PR-tielens-linnartz[1].png[/attachment]

Scientists from Leiden University have shown in the laboratory how Buckyballs - molecular soccerballs - form in space. The experiments are special, as these are based on a new chemical concept - top-down, from big to small - transfering large aromatic species into interstellar graphene, fullerenes and carbon cages.

C60 Buckminsterfullerenes were discovered in space in 2010, nearly 15 years after the Nobel Prize was awarded for their discovery in the laboratory. With this discovery, C60 also became the largest identified molecule in the interstellar medium. Unclear, however, was how such a complex molecule could form. Because of the highly dilute nature of matter in space, it is very unlikely that it forms in a series of sequential steps, building up from smaller species. An answer to this question has been found in the Laboratory for Astrophysics at Leiden Observatory. The results have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Dying stars expell large amounts of so called PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These are the same particles that are emitted on Earth by cars, contributing to air pollution. A PAH comprises of a generally flat carbon skeleton with H-atoms at the edges. They are expected to be omnipresent in space as their spectral fingerprints are visible everywhere in the Universe.

In Leiden a new setup has been constructed - iPOP (Instrument to study Photodynamics of PAHs) that is used to catch very large PAHs in a molecular trap. The scientists at Leiden Observatory subsequently irradiated the PAHs with light and discovered that once a PAH is put into the spotlights, it starts with a molecular striptease, stripping off H-atoms one by one, until the naked carbon skeleton is left over. This is nothing else than a graphene flake. ...

Laboratory formation of fullerenes from PAHs: Top-down interstellar chemistry - Junfeng Zhen et al

• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1411.7230 > 26 Nov 2014