I see a red door and I want to paint it black...

Stand back Emos and Goths. You've long asked for it, and now science has it - a black that is blacker than black.

Nanotube technology has produced a paint so efficient, it absorbs over 99.9% of visible light. Normal black paint has a reflective index of about 5%-10%, while the previous darkest colour was about 0.45%, made from a nickel phosphorus alloy. This one is thirty times darker still.

Check out The Lab for more info.

Mike

Technorati tags: Science, Education, Community, Radio, Canberra, Australia

Einstein is right! Again!

He must be getting sick of always being right, surely! Einstein predicted that light would bend while passing large masses due to something called 'gravitational lensing'. Low and behold, we've observed it happen numerous times in history. Now we've found perhaps the most extraordinary example of such a thing.

If you have a large light source lined up in a line-of-sight perspective behind something massive, like a galaxy, the light should bend around it. This then forms a ring of light around the foreground object. Add another galaxy into the line-up, and you'll get more bending, hence another ring.

It's highly unlikely you'd ever get two galaxies lined up perfectly in front of a third bright galaxy...but that's pretty much what astronomers have found.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080110102319.htm

Amazing.

Mike

Technorati tags: Science, Education, Community, Radio, Canberra, Australia