
Mysteries behind interstellar buckyballs finally answered - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-mysteries-interstellar-buckyballs.html
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gorgoiler
Formation “only possible in lab settings”? I thought the way to make
buckyballs was to burn the carbon rods on an arc welder into oblivion, then
sift through the debris looking for the Buckyballs you accidentally made
without realizing it? Seems like a plausible scenario that could occur
anywhere (edit: and wikipedia suggests even occurs in lightning strikes and
candle flames.)

Didn’t the original paper lead to a corresponding world shortage in electric
arc welders, for a time, as labs bought them all up?

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dmix
They don’t seem to mention how it was detected in space in the first place.

Is there planetary nebulae in our solar system and it was detected with a
spacecraft? If so where did it come from if it came from a dying star?

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jarvist
By vibrational spectroscopy. You compare the microwave / infrared spectrum of
a compound measured in the lab, to data from telescopes.

Fullerenes are by far the largest molecules positively identified in space.
Due to the high symmetry of the molecules, they have a very specific and quite
simple vibrational fingerprint.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/369296a0](https://www.nature.com/articles/369296a0)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circumstellar_molecules)

~~~
mscholz
The Nature paper describes electronic spectroscopy of the ionized C60+, where
light from the near-IR to the UV is used to excite electronic, rather than
vibrational or rotational, transitions.

Indeed, this is how the presence of C60+ in the interstellar medium was
absolutely confirmed (and was the first assignment of such a near-IR to UV
absorption line from the interstellar medium).[0]

The problem with the Ehrenfreud paper is that the spectrum was recorded in
frozen neon and the interaction between the analyte (C60+) and its matrix
(frozen neon) is strong enough such that the perturbation is larger than the
certainty of the positions of the spectral lines. Definitive laboratory
assignments therefore require studying the molecules under (as close to)
identical conditions as the interstellar environment, including high vacuum
and low temperature.

The detection of neutral C60 was, as you say, performed using infrared
(vibrational) spectroscopy.[1]

[0]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14566](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14566)

[1]
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/329/5996/1180](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/329/5996/1180)

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julius_set
I mean it makes total sense. Supernova explosions are far more powerful than
whatever we create in our labs on earth. Of course they will generate exotic
molecules.

~~~
ncmncm
Supernovas are better at destroying exotic molecules.

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gjm11
Abstract of article at Astrophysical Journal Letters (full content is
paywalled):
[https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab4206](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab4206)

Short general-scientific-audience description from _Nature_ :
[https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/news/spotlight/origins-
buckyball...](https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/news/spotlight/origins-buckyballs-
space) (PDF at [https://www.nature.com/magazine-
assets/d41586-019-03139-6/d4...](https://www.nature.com/magazine-
assets/d41586-019-03139-6/d41586-019-03139-6.pdf))

University of Arizona press release of which the phys.org "article" is a word-
for-word copy: [https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/mysteries-behind-
interstell...](https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/mysteries-behind-interstellar-
buckyballs-finally-answered)

~~~
mirimir
> full content is paywalled

And that's criminal, given this:

> This work was supported by NSF grants AST-1515568, 1531243, AST-1907910,
> NASA grants NNX15AD94G, NNX15AJ22G, NNX16A31G, NNX12AL47G, 80NSSC19K0509,
> NIH grant R25GM062584, DOE Contract DE-AC07-051D14517, and the Sloan
> Foundation Baseline Scholars Program.

But anyway: [https://sci-
hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab4206](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab4206)

