In Brief:

(CNN) -- A Florida team has joined 20 others in seeking the X-Prize, a $10 million bounty promised to the first entrepreneurs that take two roundtrips to space in the same vehicle.

The St. Louis-based X-Prize Foundation has offered the prize to the first private group that sends three persons into sub-orbital space twice within 14 days.

Orlando-based Fundamental Technology Systems officially entered their Aurora vehicle into the private race to space this week, according to X Prize officials.

The Aurora spaceplane, powered by a single kerosene and hydrogen peroxide rocket engine, is designed to fly just above 62 miles (100 km).

Since its inception in 1996, teams from five nations have registered to compete in the X-Prize competition. Concept vehicles range from those that takeoff and land on conventional runways to one that takes off from the world's largest hot air balloon. Many anticipate launching by 2003.

(CNN) -- Terrestrial life requires carbon atoms that form ringed-shaped molecules. Now for the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of similar atomic structures in interstellar space.

Using an infrared space telescope, Spanish researchers looked at an old star on the verge of becoming a white dwarf and surrounded by a glowing cloud of gas and dust. There they found evidence of benzene -- carbon chains made of six atoms, with a hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom.

Benzene is from a chemical family of aromatic hydrocarbons with many applications on Earth. It is used for everything from an industrial cleaner to the manufacture of perfumes and candles.

The team thinks that the molecule is the missing link between simple carbon molecules made of a handful of atoms, which have been observed in older red giant stars, and much more complex hydrocarbon molecules detected throughout space.

The findings are published in the January 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

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