{"id":608257,"date":"2026-09-07T03:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/608257\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T03:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:46:14","slug":"one-of-the-worlds-darkest-paints-makes-everything-look-like-a-black-hole-and-it-could-save-our-night-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/608257\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the world&#8217;s darkest paints makes everything look like a black hole \u2013 and it could save our night sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new study of one of the world\u2019s darkest coatings suggests it could dramatically reduce the impact of satellites on astronomy.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Surrey found that the ultra-black coating Vantablack 310 could make satellites faint enough to approach the brightness limits recommended by the International Astronomical Union for protecting astronomical observations.<\/p>\n<p>In Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the team report that Vantablack 310 reflects only around two per cent of incoming light and reduces bright flashes by scattering light more diffusely.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/elon-musk.jpg\" alt=\"Elon Musk. Credit: Michael Gonzalez \/ Stringer \/ Getty Images\" class=\"wp-image-172060\"\/>Credit: Michael Gonzalez \/ Stringer \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Vantablack-310.jpg\" alt=\"The bronze cast on the left is coated with Vantablack 310, a paint that could help dim bright satellites if space tests prove successful. Credit: Surrey NanoSystems\" class=\"wp-image-192718\"\/>The bronze cast on the left is coated with Vantablack 310, a paint that could help dim bright satellites if space tests prove successful. Credit: Surrey NanoSystems<\/p>\n<p>They measured the coating\u2019s reflectivity under a range of illumination and viewing conditions to simulate how satellites painted with it would appear from the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Their simulations suggest the painted satellites could have their apparent brightness significantly reduced to around magnitude +7.0, making them effectively too faint to be seen by most naked-eye observers.<\/p>\n<p>This comes as concern grows over the impact of satellite megaconstellations.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"799\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/satellites-eso-chile.jpg\" alt=\"Image showing satellites in the night sky above the Atacama Desert in Chile, over a period of one hour, 15 October 2025. Credit: F. Kamphues, ESO\/M. Kornmesser\" class=\"wp-image-190365\"\/>Image showing satellites in the night sky above the Atacama Desert in Chile, over a period of one hour, 15 October 2025. Credit: F. Kamphues, ESO\/M. Kornmesser<\/p>\n<p>Tens of thousands more are expected to be operating in low Earth orbit by the end of the decade, creating bright streaks and flares that interfere with observations and large-scale surveys of the night sky.<\/p>\n<p>Lead author Astha Chaturvedi says: \u201cOur results show simple material choices could make a meaningful difference to how satellites affect astronomical observations without major changes to mission design.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study of one of the world\u2019s darkest coatings suggests it could dramatically reduce the impact of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-608257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}