A PREDICTION by a Bolton Nobel Prize winner three decades ago has been proven right.

Almost 30 years ago, Sir Harry Kroto predicted that "buckyballs" — the C60 molecule Buckminsterfullerene which he and his team discovered in 1985 — was the answer to a mystery dating back to 1922.

And he has now been proved right.

Bolton School old boy Sir Harry won the 1996 Novel Prize for the being a part of the team which discovered Carbon 60 — a substance which revolutionised civil engineering because it is both stronger and lighter than steel.

A young astronomy graduate student called Mary Lea Helger in 1922 reported that an unknown substance was absorbing specific frequencies of light from faraway stars. She had discovered what scientists now call "diffuse interstellar bands" or DIBs.

In 1987, Sir Harry predicted that the C60 carbon molecules he had discovered were responsible for this phenomenon, because they would be very stable in the interstellar medium and could survive the high radiation field.

Then in 1993, Sir Harry’s close friend John Maier, along with other researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland, created space-like conditions in a lab and found that a unique buckyball — the positively charged C60 molecule — absorbs light at the right frequencies.

However, Maier and his critics were not satisfied with the set up, and so since then, they have been trying to more faithfully recreate the harsh, interstellar environment.

Almost 20 years later, Maier finally managed to create a simulation of space to the satisfaction of himself and his critics.

And at a symposium in London celebrating the 30th anniversary of the discovery of C60, Maier announced the identification of C60+ as the carrier of two diffuse interstellar bands.

He also published an article in Nature detailing his laboratory results.

A spokesman for Bolton School said: "Sir Harry is delighted that his prediction has been proved correct after almost thirty years."