Vantablack. The world’s darkest man-made object. Through nanoelectronics, Surrey Nanosystems, a British company, have constructed carbon nanotubes 10,000 times thinner than a human hair to absord 99.965% of light, making it a world record.

The tubes are tiny enough to disallow photons from entering them. However, when photons do manage to enter the distance between the tubes, they are captured.

“You expect to see the hills and all you can see … it’s like black, like a hole, like there’s nothing there. It just looks so strange,” Surrey Nanosystems’ according to technical director Ben Jensen. Surrey Nanosystems calls this “Vantablack” (Veritcally Aligned Carbon NanoTube Array). The new record-breaking invention will be able to be used for scientific purposes in astronomy.

“We are now scaling up production to meet the requirements of our first customers in the defense and space sectors, and have already delivered our first orders,” said Jensen.