July 17, 2020

The Buckyball Asteroid

3. The Buckyball Asteroid

You are down on your knees fitting a bunch of triangles and squares into an awesome pattern when you look up and spot a girl wearing a baseball cap and a white soccer shirt with the number "21."

"Hi. What's happening?" she asks casually, as if the two of you were back home, not on some asteroid.

"Just tiling the floor," you answer.

"I'm Anita," she says. "My friend Bill over there is looking for Buckyball Field," she adds, pointing to a long-legged, curly haired boy who is kicking a soccer ball. His white soccer shirt has the number "34."

"Did you find it?" Bill asks Anita as he comes running up. "I know this sounds crazy," he explains, "but we're scheduled to play soccer against some space aliens at Buckyball Field, and we don't know where it is."

"I think we're on the wrong asteroid," Anita says with a sigh.

"I bet we could find it from my space capsule," you offer.

You, Anita, and Bill are soon hanging out in what used to be your bedroom, silently sailing through space.

A sharply pointed shape suddenly appears on the navigation screen. Looking closely, you notice that it has four identical triangular faces.


Then other three-dimensional objects come into view. Some have triangular surfaces, like the first one you saw, and others are made up of squares, pentagons, or other polygons.


"Look! There's one made up of twenty triangles," Anita says.


"I see a buckyball!" Bill exclaims, pointing to an object on the screen that looks a bit like a soccer ball. "Quick! Click on it!"


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