Breakthrough in space science

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 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.

If used in detectors and other instrument components, the technology would allow scientists to gather hard-to- obtain measurements of objects so distant in the universe that astronomers no longer can see them in visible light or those in high-contrast areas, including planets in orbit around other stars.