“…Astrophysicists have proposed that, based on the observation of a new hexagonal carbon phase in meteorites, carbyne might exist as meteorites ( 9 ) and as a by-product of shock-fused graphite ( 10 ). Materials physicists have reported the presence of similar hexagonal carbon phases in the laboratory syntheses of carbyne by a number of routes, such as graphite sublimation and dehydrohalogenation of polymers ( 11 , 12 ). In these cases, there was no substantial evidence of the existence of carbyne (that is, a linear one-dimensional framework composed of sp -hybridized carbon atoms) in the resulting products.…”