From the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, to the structure of the DNA helix. The simple living cell to the structure of an atom, everything in the world follows a pattern! The natural pattern of things is visible in every aspect we look into, but does this pattern also follow us into the realm of man made objects?

Chemists at the Carnegie Mellon University have been working on mapping the structure of a synthetically generated gold nano particle. Rongchao Jin, associate professor of chemistry at the school said that with X-ray crystallography, they were able to see very beautiful patterns, which was a very exciting discovery.

Called Au133, these particles self-assemble into three layers within each particle. These are the gold core, the surface molecules that protect it and the interface between them. The gold core is in the shape of an icosahedron. The sulfur-gold-sulfur combinations stack into ladder-like helical structure. And the outer layer of surface-protecting molecules whose carbon tails self-assemble into fourfold swirls.

Needless to say the patterns that govern are world are effortlessly visible even in artificially created gold in the laboratories. This is such a pretty science project to behold.