ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Bucky Ball

Okay kiddo, so have you ever played with Legos before? You know how they snap together and can become different shapes? Well, a bucky ball is kind of like that, but much smaller and made of something called carbon.

Carbon is a very important element that makes up a lot of things in the world, like the air we breathe and the pencils we use to draw. When carbon atoms are arranged in a special way, they can create a bucky ball.

Now, a bucky ball is made up of lots of carbon atoms that are all stuck together to make a sphere shape. It looks like a soccer ball, with 12 pentagons and different hexagons all connected together.

Scientists study bucky balls because they are very interesting and have a lot of potential uses. Some people think they could be used for things like medicine, electronics or even to make things like stronger plastics.

So in summary, a bucky ball is a very small sphere made of carbon atoms that scientists are studying because of all the cool things it might be able to do!