By Trudy E. Bell and Tony Phillips
Deep in interstellar space, in a the swirling gaseous envelope of a planetary nebula, hosts of carbon atoms have joined together to form large three-dimensional molecules of a special type previously seen only on Earth. Astronomers discovered them almost accidentally using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
“They are the largest molecules known in space,” declared Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, lead author of a paper with three colleagues published in Science online on July 22, 2010, and in print on September 3.
Not only are the molecules big: they are of a special class of carbon molecules known as “fullerenes” because their structure resembles the geodesic domes popularized by architect Buckminster Fuller. Spitzer found evidence of two types of fullerenes. The smaller type, nicknamed the “buckyball,” is chemical formula C60, made of 60 carbon atoms joined in a series of hexagons and pentagons to form a spherical closed cage exactly like a black-and-white soccer ball. Spitzer also found a larger fullerene, chemical formula C70, consisting of 70 carbon atoms in an elongated closed cage more resembling an oval rugby ball.
Neither type of fullerene is rigid; instead, their carbon atoms vibrate in and out, rather like the surface of a large soap bubble changes shape as it floats through the air. “Those vibrations correspond to wavelengths of infrared light emitted or absorbed—and that infrared emission is what Spitzer recorded,” Cami explained.
Although fullerenes have been sought in space for the last 25 years, ever since they were first identified in the laboratory, the astronomers practically stumbled into the discovery. Co-author Jeronimo Bernard-Salas of Cornell University, an expert in gas and dust in planetary nebulae, was doing routine research with Spitzer’s infrared observations of planetary nebulae with its spectroscopy instrument. When he studied the spectrum (infrared signature) of a dim planetary nebula called Tc 1 in the southern-hemisphere constellation of Ara, he noticed several clear peaks he had not seen before in the spectra of other planetary nebulae.
“When he came to me,” recounted Cami, an astrophysicist who specializes in molecular chemistry, “I immediately and intuitively knew it I was looking at buckyballs in space. I’ve never been that excited!” The authors confirmed his hunch by carefully comparing the Tc 1 spectrum to laboratory experiments described in the literature.
“This discovery shows that it is possible—even easy—for complex carbonaceous molecules to form spontaneously in space,” Cami said. “Now that we know fullerenes are out there, we can figure out their roles in the physics and chemistry of deep space. Who knows what other complex chemical compounds exist—maybe even some relevant to the formation of life in the universe!”
Stay tuned!
Learn more about this discovery at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu. For kids, there are lots of beautiful Spitzer images to match up in the Spitzer Concentration game at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spitzer/concentration.
This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Caption:
Superimposed on a Spitzer infrared photo of the Small Magellanic Cloud is an artist’s illustration depicting a magnified view of a planetary nebula and an even further magnified view of buckyballs, which consist of 60 carbon atoms arranged like soccer balls.