Page "Fullerene" Paragraph 1

The first fullerene to be discovered, and the family's namesake, buckminsterfullerene ( C < sub > 60 </ sub >), was prepared in 1985 by Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, James Heath, Sean O ' Brien, and Harold Kroto at Rice University.

The name was an homage to Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes it resembles.

The structure was also identified some five years earlier by Sumio Iijima, from an electron microscope image, where it formed the core of a " bucky onion.

" Fullerenes have since been found to occur in nature.

More recently, fullerenes have been detected in outer space.

According to astronomer Letizia Stanghellini, " It ’ s possible that buckyballs from outer space provided seeds for life on Earth .”