Egg Shape

Chemists at Virginia Tech have created an egg-shaped molecule called a "buckyball egg," whose shape seems to defy rules in this area of research.

Fullerenes, also called "buckyballs," are usually spherical molecules of carbon, named after the futurist R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome. The carbon atoms are arranged in pentagons and hexagons, so their structures can resemble a soccer ball. Until now, chemists had assumed no two pentagons could touch and are always surrounded by hexagons.

The scientists, led by Harry Dorn, created the odd-shaped molecules by heating a mixture of carbon and other ingredients under special conditions. An analysis of the molecule's structure by Alan Balch and Marilyn Olmstead at the University of California, Davis, revealed two pentagons next to each other, making the pointy end of the egg. The unexpected discovery opens new possibilities for structures for fullerenes, which could have a wide range of uses such as in the field of medical scanning procedures.

--LiveScience Staff

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Credit: Christine Beavers/UC Davis