“Carbon atoms are about half a million times smaller than the average thickness of a human hair, but they can be a billion times larger in the cold and sparse gas. The outermost electron is then orbiting the nucleus at a much larger distance,” said Morabito. The outermost electron can be captured by an atom that is missing an electron. A spectral line will then be visible in the light spectrum. All spectral lines form the chemical fingerprint of an atom such as carbon.