World's Darkest Material Absorbs 99% Of Visible Light, Used In Space Photography
The darkest material, called Vantablack, is so dark that when the scientists at British company Nanosystems made the newest version, they couldn’t measure how dark it is.
Vantablack traps over 99.8% of light that our eyes can see, through its tightly packed and incredibly tiny carbon fibers, meaning that light goes in but cannot come out. Absorbing this much light allows the material to appear flat, even though it is not.
Although the material has been available since 2014, recent use shows it can be used practically for educational purposes.
The material is already placed on satellites to absorb stray light so that better images of space can be taken. Funnily enough, when placed on the ‘ultra-black’ paint on NASA’s Hubble Telescope, the paint job looked blue, instead of black.
Watch the video from Tech Insider here.
[via Tech Insider, images via video stills]
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