After staring into this eternal abyss of darkness for 15 minutes straight, I can say that this carbon nanotube coating is incredible, yet unsettling. The material is called Vantablack and it may be the closest thing to a visual black hole science will ever create.
Grown on a sheet of aluminum foil and comprised of nanotubes 10,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair, the material traps all but 0.035 percent of light that enters its gloomy void. Photons squeeze in between the nanotubes and bounce around; they are absorbed by the Vantablack, and never seen again. The material is so dark that not even the contours, shapes, and ripples of the aluminum foil can be seen.
Scientists hope to use the material in an astronomical camera designed take pictures of the oldest objects in the universe. The only way to do this is to point the camera at something as black as possible.
Via Gizmodo.
