Cosmic Soccer Balls!

Not human sized soccer balls, but those of the molecular variety - chains of carbon atoms which arrange themselves into a soccer-ball like shape, also known as buckyballs. These have long been manufactured on Earth and have lots of industrial uses, but it wasn't thought that they would necessarily form through the essentially random processes which govern the formation of molecules in space. Well, until the Spitzer Space Telescope detected their tell-tale infrared glow. Go here and here to read more. Neat!