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Buckyballs in space solve 100-year-old riddle

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Spheres of carbon-60 responsible for mysterious cosmic-light features.

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Change history

  • 23 July 2015

    References 4 and 5 were in the wrong order when this story was originally published. This has now been corrected.

  • 23 July 2015

    In an earlier version of this story, the credit for the compound image omitted the relevant citations. This has now been corrected.

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Additional information

Read the related News & Views article, ‘Fullerene solves an interstellar puzzle’.

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Related links in Nature Research

Nanotechnology: Small wonders 2010-Sep-01

Organic compound found in the stars 2007-Jul-24

Carbon buckyballs found in space for the first time

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Nature Podcast

Elizabeth Gibney asks John Maier about buckyballs in space.

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Gibney, E. Buckyballs in space solve 100-year-old riddle. Nature (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2015.17987

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