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Fullerenes, discovered in 1985 and awarded the Nobel Prize, are stable carbon molecules that may help understand the universe’s organic material organization, due to their presence in space and potential to transport complex molecules. The image above depicts the center of the planetary nebula M57, taken by the astrophotographer Dr. Robert Gendler, and John Bozeman. Credit: NASA/ESA
These molecules were discovered in the laboratory in 1985, which procured the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their three discoverers 11 years later. Since then there have been many instances of observational proof of their existence in space, especially within the gas clouds around old, dying stars the size of the Sun, called planetary nebulae, which have been expelled from the outer layers of the stars towards the end of their lives.
“We have combined for the first time, the optical constants of HAC, obtained from laboratory experiments, with models of photoionization, and doing this we have reproduced the infrared emission of the planetary nebula Tc 1, which is very rich in fullerenes”, explains Domingo Anibal García Hernández, an IAC researcher who is a coauthor of the paper.
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