What bounces, spins and is shaped like a soccer ball (a.k.a. football), but made of just 60 carbon atoms?

A buckyball. They are called buckyballs because people got tired of calling them by their real names – 60-carbon alkene buckminsterfullerene. Sometimes they are simply called C₆₀. As far as anyone knows, it’s the roundest molecule in the world.

Buckyballs are just one-billionth of a meter (or one nanometer) in diameter. They are made of 60 carbon atoms arranged in such a way that if you filled in its outer surface it would look like a football (a.k.a. soccer ball). For those who love geometry terms this shape is called a truncated icosahedron.

Buckyballs belong to a class of molecules called fullerenes. These molecules are made entirely of carbon and can take the shape of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid or tube.

Here are just a few interesting buckyball properties:

• The balls spin at a rate of more than 100 million times per second.
• In its normal solid state a cube of buckyballs is soft like graphite. If you compress the cube by 30% it becomes harder than diamond.
• When they are squeezed they flatten a bit but spring back to normal when they are released.
• When mixed with a certain amount of potassium to form K₃C₆₀ it conducts electricity. When mixed with additional potassium it becomes an insulator.
• Solutions of pure buckyballs have deep purple color.
• Buckyballs are hollow and other molecules can be trapped inside of them.
• Buckyballs are tough. If you slam one at 24,000 kph (15,000 mph) into stainless steel they don’t break. They just bounce back.

Today people are studying fullerenes closely to see how they can be used in fuel cells, batteries, pharmaceuticals, rocket propellants, lubricants and coatings.