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Scientist sees evidence of 'onions' in space

Scientists may have peeled away another layer of mystery about materials floating in deep space. Tiny multilayered balls called “carbon onions,” produced in laboratory studies, appear to have the same light-absorption characteristics as dust particles in the regions between the stars. “It’s the strongest evidence yet that cosmic dust has a multilayered onionlike carbon structure,” said Manish Chhowalla, assistant professor of ceramic and materials engineering at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Chhowalla used transmission electron microscopes to study radiation absorption of the laboratory-produced onions and found characteristics virtually identical to those reported by astrophysicists studying dust in deep space.