C60, fullerenes, giant fullerenes and soot
During a series of experiments in which the nucleation of carbon vapour was studied in order to explore carbon chain and particle formation in stars the highly stable c60 molecule was detected. The properties of this molecule are in almost perfect accord with the proposal that the molecule has the closed cage buckminsterfullerene structure in which all 60 atoms are equivalent and lie at the corners of a truncated icosahedron, a shape familiar to many today in the form of the modern foot- or soccerball. This molecule is expected to be stabilised by geodesic and aromatic factors. The most important aspect of this discovery lies in the fact that such a symmetric object can form spontaneously from a chaotic, hot, carbon plasma. This novel conjecture is consistent with a wide range of observations on carbonaceous materials. The emphasis in this article is on those aspects of the c60 saga which pertain to non-planar organic chemistry both on earth and in space.