AN ANALYSIS of carbon contained in a meteorite that hit Mexico in 1969 has revealed the first evidence of giant fullerene molecules originating in outer space. The finding bolsters the suspicion that meteorites have triggered mass extinctions.
Large numbers of species died out at the end of the Permian and Cretaceous periods. Rocks from both periods contain quantities of fullerenes, the ball-shaped molecules made entirely of carbon atoms. Till now, no one had found fullerenes in meteorites. But electron microscopy studies of material from the Allende meteorite by Peter Harris at the University of Reading in the UK and Ronald…
