Asteroids May Have Made Fullerenes

WASHINGTON - Asteroids that smashed to Earth millions of years ago may have created an exotic form of carbon that scientists did not discover until recently, researchers report today.

The exotic carbon is called a fullerene because its structure resembles the geodesic dome designed by the late Buckminister Fuller.

Two years ago, fullerenes were found in a Russian rock called shungite and in a lightning-scarred rock called fulgurite found in Colorado.

Two teams of scientists report today in the journal Science that they have found deposits in formations associated with the impact on Earth of asteroids.

A team from Rice University isolated fullerenes from sites in New Zealand that bear soot from huge wildfires ignited when a large asteroid smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago near Chicxulub in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Other researchers found fullerene deposits in a crater near Sudbury, Ontario.