DEVELOPING AND DESIGNING NEW CHEMICALS AND MATERIALS - Chemistry: Notable Research and Discoveries - page 12

BuCkMInSTErFullErEnE—
AMolECulEInTHESHAPEoF
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In 1985, Harry Kroto, then a professor at the University of Sussex, in
England, came to Rice University in Houston, Texas, to work with
Richard Smalley and Robert Curl on a project involving the chemistry
of carbon-containing molecules. The researchers used a mass spectrom-
The structure of C 60 consists of carbon atoms bonded together in the
shape of a soccer ball. In the figure, the dots (or nodes) represent car-
bon atoms, and the lines represent bonds, some of which are double
bonds in which two pairs of electrons are shared.