The world’s darkest black absorbs more than 99% of visible light

British company Nanosystems developed a material back in 2014, which is the darkest ever produced: it’s called Vantablack, and it absorbs 99.8% of visible light (this is, the spectrum that our eyes can perceive).

Since it absorbs so much light, it has been placed on satellites since its discovery so that better images of space can be taken. It’s such a dark color that it makes the ultra-black paint on NASA’s Hubble telescope look blue!

The newest version is so dark that scientists couldn’t determine how much light it actually absorbs. The material manages to do this by trapping light within its tightly packed, tiny carbon fibers. So light goes in, but it can’t get out.

You can learn more about the story of this material on Tech Insider’s Facebook post, available here.