How you get the chameleon of the molecules to settle on a
particular "look" has been discovered by RUB chemists led by
Professor Dominik Marx. The molecule CH5+ is normally not to be
described by a single rigid structure, but is dynamically
flexible. By means of computer simulations, the team from the
Centre for Theoretical Chemistry showed that CH5+ takes on a
particular structure once you attach hydrogen molecules. "In
this way, we have taken an important step towards understanding
experimental vibrational spectra in the future", says Dominik
Marx. The researchers report in the journal "Physical Review
Letters". In the CH5+ molecule, the hydrogen atoms are
permanently on the move The superacid CH5+, also called
protonated methane, occurs in outer space - where new stars are
formed. Researchers already discovered the molecule in the
1950s, but many of its features are still unknown. Unlike
conventional molecules in which all the atoms have a fixed
position, the five hydrogen atoms in CH5+ are constantly movi