NASA Develops Super-Black Material That Absorbs Light Across Multiple Wavelength Bands

NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.The team of engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., reported their findings recently at the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference, the largest interdisciplinary technical meeting in this discipline. The team has since reconfirmed the material's absorption capabilities in additional testing, said John Hagopian, who is leading the effort involving 10 Goddard technologists.

"The reflectance tests showed that our team had extended by 50 times the range of the material’s absorption capabilities. Though other researchers are reporting near-perfect absorption levels mainly in the ultraviolet and visible, our material is darn near perfect across multiple wavelength bands, from the ultraviolet to the far infrared," Hagopian said. "No one else has achieved this milestone yet."

The nanotech-based coating is a thin layer of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, tiny hollow tubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. They are positioned vertically on various substrate materials much like a shag rug. The team has grown the nanotubes on silicon, silicon nitride, titanium, and stainless steel, materials commonly used in space-based scientific instruments.

Giant Rings Around Galaxies confuse Astronomers

Giant rings of ultraviolet light have been marked around some ancient galaxies, sending some scientists reeling from the totally unexpected phenomenon. The odd ultraviolet formations were spotted around several aged galaxies that astronomers had supposed to be astronomically dead inactive, that is. "We haven't seen anything fairly like these rings before," said researcher Michael Rich at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a statement. "These beautiful and very unusual objects strength be telling us something very important about the evolution of galaxies."

Astronomers experiential the ultraviolet rings using two orbiting space observatories: NASA's Galaxy development Explorer and Hubble Space Telescope. They studied 30 elliptical and lens shaped "early" galaxies with strong UV emissions to determine why they though early and having no visible signs of star formation were still emitting such lively light. NASA announces the discovery this month. Details of the research appear in the April 21 subject of the Astrophysical Journal. While young and lively galaxies have bluish hues from their active stars, older galaxies emit ruddy collective starlight, NASA officials said in a statement.

This reddish trait of the stars in the very old galaxies allowed scientists to peg the ages of most of the stars at around 10 billion years old. When astronomers studied the same galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists exposed the source of the energetic look.Three quarters of the galaxies were enclosed by tremendous shining rings of ultraviolet light. A few halos were so large they could fit some galaxies the size of the Milky Way, and had ripples in their glow that stretched across 250,000 light years.