Hubble Space Telescope finds charged soccer-shaped molecules in space

The video tutorial discusses Bucky balls, also known as C60, which are molecules made of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a hollow sphere. These molecules have been found on Earth in rare cases and have also been observed in space. Recently, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered ionized C60 in the interstellar medium (ISM), where ultraviolet light from stars ionizes the molecules. The ISM, previously thought too harsh for complex carbon-based molecules, contains various compounds, including helium and hydrogen, and is now known to sustain such molecules.

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