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What materials result in black?

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Vantablack is the new black

Its dark appearance is the result of a unique forest-like coating of densely packed, ultra-thin carbon nanotubes which absorb 99.96% of visible light that hits its surface.

Developed by UK scientists at Surrey Nanosystems, Vantablack (named from Vertically Aligned NanoTube Arrays) could help telescopes see further, although BBC One’s The One Show had an alternative use for it.

The One Show commissioned two bronze busts of presenter Marty Jopson, coating one with Vantablack. These are on display at the Museum (from 12 February 2016 for four months), so you can see this incredible material for yourself.

Vantablack is also being used by artist Sir Anish Kapoor who described the material as ‘blacker than anything you can imagine. So black you almost can’t see it… Imagine a space that’s so dark that as you walk in you lose all sense of where you are, what you are, and especially all sense of time.’

Two busts of The One Show presenter Marty Jopson, one coated with Vantablack. Credit: Surrey Nanosystems Two busts of The One Show presenter Marty Jopson, one coated with Vantablack. Credit: Surrey Nanosystems

Why is this material so black? Instead of being reflected, light striking Vantablack becomes trapped within the forest of carbon nanotubes, eventually emerging as infra-red light (heat). Because so little light (just 0.04%) is reflected, the human eye struggles to see shadows or contours on its surface, which is why it even makes 3D objects appears flat.

Vantablack is on display at the Science Museum from 12 February 2016 in Antenna, the Museum’s contemporary science gallery.


JoeB says:

For anyone planning to go and look at this, it’s worth noting that there is no such thing as the ‘contemporary science gallery.’ I spent a fair old while looking for it on Friday evening before a helpful member of staff directed me to the Antenna area, which is where you’ll find it. Very impressive, worth the effort. It’s like, how much more black could it be?

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This blog will take you behind the scenes at the Science Museum, exploring the incredible objects in our collection, upcoming exhibitions and the scientific achievements making headlines today.




Black Holes

Don’t let the name fool you: a black hole is anything but empty space. Rather, it is a great amount of matter packed into a very small area – think of a star ten times more massive than the Sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City. The result is a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. In recent years, NASA instruments have painted a new picture of these strange objects that are, to many, the most fascinating objects in space.

Intense X-ray flares thought to be caused by a black hole devouring a star. (Video)

The idea of an object in space so massive and dense that light could not escape it has been around for centuries. Most famously, black holes were predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which showed that when a massive star dies, it leaves behind a small, dense remnant core. If the core’s mass is more than about three times the mass of the Sun, the equations showed, the force of gravity overwhelms all other forces and produces a black hole.

A video about black holes.

Scientists can’t directly observe black holes with telescopes that detect x-rays, light, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. We can, however, infer the presence of black holes and study them by detecting their effect on other matter nearby. If a black hole passes through a cloud of interstellar matter, for example, it will draw matter inward in a process known as accretion. A similar process can occur if a normal star passes close to a black hole. In this case, the black hole can tear the star apart as it pulls it toward itself. As the attracted matter accelerates and heats up, it emits x-rays that radiate into space. Recent discoveries offer some tantalizing evidence that black holes have a dramatic influence on the neighborhoods around them – emitting powerful gamma ray bursts, devouring nearby stars, and spurring the growth of new stars in some areas while stalling it in others.

One Star’s End is a Black Hole’s Beginning

Most black holes form from the remnants of a large star that dies in a supernova explosion. (Smaller stars become dense neutron stars, which are not massive enough to trap light.) If the total mass of the star is large enough (about three times the mass of the Sun), it can be proven theoretically that no force can keep the star from collapsing under the influence of gravity. However, as the star collapses, a strange thing occurs. As the surface of the star nears an imaginary surface called the “event horizon,” time on the star slows relative to the time kept by observers far away. When the surface reaches the event horizon, time stands still, and the star can collapse no more – it is a frozen collapsing object.

Colin Wynn
the authorColin Wynn

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