For over 40 years, astrophysicists have been puzzled by strange emissions from space in certain infrared bands.
Now, new laboratory research suggests a plausible answer: a cloud of vibrating metallofullerenes, a large soccer-ball-like molecule, an American futurist geodesic dome. Also known as the Bucky Ball, after its evangelist, Buckminster Fuller.
Infrared radiation with wavelengths between 3 and 20 micrometers, known as unidentified infrared radiation, has been observed in a variety of cosmic contexts, particularly around star-forming regions such as planetary nebulae. It has been. Energetic clouds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or mixed aromatic/aliphatic organic nanoparticles have been proposed as sources, but have not been confirmed.
In contrast,Some fullerene molecules have been confirmed to produce infrared radiation in space, according to the authors of a new paper available on the online academic server Arxiv.org. at wavelengths of 7.0, 8.5, 17.4, and 18.9 micrometers within the planetary nebula.
In a new paper, researchers led by Gao-Lei Hou of Xi'an Jiaotong University in China hope to better understand the infrared signature of more complex fullerene molecules that could explain more emissions. was They performed laboratory experiments to see if they could predict the unique spectra in space of fullerenes, including cosmically abundant metals such as lithium, aluminum, magnesium and sodium.
This result is the first laboratory measurement of the infrared spectrum of a metallofullerene molecule.
"The overall agreement between the theoretical and laboratory spectra gives confidence that the infrared spectrum can be reliably predicted," the researchers wrote in their paper.
Now that scientists have a better understanding of what the infrared patterns of vibrating metallofullerenes look like, they begin searching for their traces in space, asking if and where they exist. You can check whether
Exactly how such molecules are formed, and in what quantities, remains a mystery so far, the researchers wrote, "The James Webb Universe. Future high-resolution and high-sensitivity data from telescopes can provide better constraints on environmental conditions.Specific fullerene metal complexes and their abundance
