Darkest Material - Astronomy News

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Jul 15 06:45 2014

Vantablack	Permalink

Scientists develop a material so dark that you can't see it... A British company has produced a "strange, alien" material so black that it absorbs all but 0.035 per cent of visual light, setting a new world record. Vantablack, which was described in the journal Optics Express and will be launched at the Farnborough International Airshow this week, works by packing together a field of nanotubes, like incredibly thin drinking straws. These are so tiny that light particles cannot get into them, although they can pass into the gaps between. Once there, however, all but a tiny remnant of the light bounces around until it is absorbed. Vantablack's practical uses include calibrating cameras used to take photographs of the oldest objects in the universe. This has to be done by pointing the camera at something as black as possible. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Nov 22 14:52 2011

RE: Darkest Material	Permalink

Carbon nanotube 'space camouflage' coating invented Tiny carbon tubes can be used to hide three-dimensional objects from view, according to a team of researchers. The nanotubes are one-atom thick sheets of graphene wrapped into cylindrical tubes. Engineers from Michigan University found they could be used to obscure objects so that they appeared to be nothing more than a flat black sheet. The team suggest "forests" of the material may one day be used to cloak spacecraft in deep space. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Nov 9 23:18 2011

Super-black material	Permalink

NASA creates groundbreaking super black light absorbing material A new, super-black material that just got unveiled during the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference. NASA is claiming it is the most light absorbent material ever developed, and capable of absorbing 99% of ultraviolet, infrared, far-infrared, and visible light. That may not sound too impressive on its own until you find out what it can be used for and the benefits it brings. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Dec 8 08:47 2010

RE: Darkest Material	Permalink

The technology works because of its super-absorption abilities. The nanotubes themselves are packed vertically much like a shag rug. The tiny gaps between the tubes absorb 99.5 percent of the light that hits them. In other words, very few photons are reflected off the carbon-nanotube coating, which means that stray light cannot reflect off surfaces and interfere with the light that scientists actually want to measure. The human eye sees the material as black because only a small fraction of light reflects off the material. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Dec 8 08:45 2010

Blacker than Black	Permalink

Black is black, right? Not so, according to a team of NASA engineers now developing a blacker-than pitch material that will help scientists gather hard-to-obtain scientific measurements or observe currently unseen astronomical objects, like Earth-sized planets in orbit around other stars. The nanotech-based material now being developed by a team of 10 technologists at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is a thin coating of multi-walled carbon nanotubes - tiny hollow tubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. Nanotubes have a multitude of potential uses, particularly in electronics and advanced materials due to their unique electrical properties and extraordinary strength. But in this application, NASA is interested in using the technology to help suppress errant light that has a funny way of ricocheting off instrument components and contaminating measurements. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Jan 16 20:00 2008

Darkest Material	Permalink

The "darkest ever" substance known to science has been made in a US laboratory. The material was created from carbon nanotubes - sheets of carbon just one atom thick rolled up into cylinders. Researchers say it is the closest thing yet to the ideal black material, which absorbs light perfectly at all angles and over all wavelengths. The discovery is expected to have applications in the fields of electronics and solar energy. Read more __________________

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