The 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Professors Robert F. Curl, Jr., and Richard E. Smalley, Rice University, Houston, USA, and Professor Sir Harold W. Kroto, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K. for their discovery of fullerenes in 1985. Kroto also collaborated with NRC researchers between 1975 and 1979 to study carbon molecules in space.
Fullerenes are a family of highly symmetrical carbon-cage molecules.
The most abundant and well known member of this family is a carbon-cage molecule made up of 60 carbon atoms, C 60 . C 60 was given the name of buckminsterfullerene in honour of architect R. Buckminster Fuller who was a pioneer in the studies of polygonal structures and the inventor of the geodesic dome. Buckminsterfullerene is usually shortened to the catchier name of buckyball. Kroto hoped that by using Smalley s equipment to study the cluster formation of carbon he might be able to gain some insight into how the cyanopolyynes were formed in stellar atmospheres. J.R. Heath and S.C. O Brien.