British scientists have created a new material using carbon nanotubes that absorbs nearly all the light that comes in contact with its surface.

Vantablack (vanta stands for "vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays") is capable of retaining all but 0.035% of the light that hits it. That means that when the human eye looks at something covered in the new material, it can't actually see the surface of it; all our eyes and brains can do is see the area surrounding the black space.

Vantablack already has several early adopters in the space and defense industries, where the applications many (coating all manner of stealth vehicles or hypersensitive telescopes are just a few ways this new material might be put to use). 

According to Extreme Tech, Vantablack is made up of "a forest of carbon nanotubes on an aluminum foil."

The maker of Vantablack, Surrey NanoSystems, remains tight-lipped on the exact process by which they construct the material or how it works, and understandably so, since nearly everyone will either be buying their product or trying to reproduce it (or perhaps both).

But the name itself ("vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays") would seem to provide some clue of Vanta's makeup, though it's not much help with how the arrays are constructed. 

Extreme Tech also reports that previous uses and studies of carbon nanotubes have demonstrated that they will let light in but not let the light photons out again. Essentially, Surrey have created a hyper-absorbent material for many forms of electromagnetic radiation, although they won't say exactly which frequencies of EM waves Vanta absorbs. 

Surrey NanoSystems has stated that its first orders of Vantablack have already been fulfilled and that the company is now ramping up its production in order to keep up the early demand for its revolutionary product.

One immediate application of this new material would be in telescopes, which are currently just coated with "very black paint," reports Extreme Tech. By coating the inside of telescopes with Vantablack, astronomers could see huge gains in image quality and clarity. 

Regardless of whether the application for Vantablack is scientific or defense purposes, the possibilities seem to be pretty endless. The future is, quite literally, dark.