«This molecule is now all over the galaxy and all over the universe,» noted
the late buckyball co-discoverer Harold Kroto, then a chemistry professor at Florida State University.
Almost a decade
later astronomers saw spectral features in interstellar gas that looked consistent with positively charged versions of
buckyballs, and the connection was confirmed in 2015 when researchers matched those features to the spectrum of
buckyballs created under spacelike conditions in the lab.