Buckyballs in Space
Sig10 022

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC/Caltech)

Artwork • October 27th, 2010 • sig10-022

sig10-022

NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope has detected buckyballs - 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. This artists conception shows buckyballs floating in interstellar space, near a region of current star-formation.

About the Object

Name
Type
Star > Evolutionary Stage > Black Hole
Star > Circumstellar Material > Disk > Accretion
Galaxy > Activity > AGN > Quasar
Galaxy > Component > Center/Core