Single photon thermal ionization of C60

We report on experiments which show that C60 can ionize in an indirect, quasi-thermal boiloff process after absorption of a single photon. The process involves a large number of incoherently excited valence electrons and yields electron spectra with a Boltzmann distribution with temperatures exceeding 10^4 K. It is expected to be present for other molecules and clusters with a comparatively large number of valence electrons. The astrophysical consequences are briefly discussed