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Robert Curl and Richard Smalley shared the Nobel Prize with Harold Kroto for their discovery of fullerenes, a new form of carbon. Fullerenes are molecules made up of carbon atoms arranged in a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. The most common fullerene is buckminsterfullerene, which has 60 carbon atoms and is shaped like a soccer ball. Fullerenes have a wide range of potential applications, including in electronics, optics, and medicine.