It looks like black is the new black, specifically Vantablack.

It's a new material that's now a Guinness World Record Holder. It's the darkest material on earth, absorbing 99.96% of visible light.

What exactly does that mean? Well for starters it means that if you paint a 3D object in Vantablack your eye can't see it any more, all you could detect would be the edges. Picture what a mountain looks like to a bird. Vantablack would take that and turn it into a hole in the ground.

Or as displayed at the labs of Surrey NanoSystems, a golden mask becomes indistinguishable when painted with Vantablack.

It's so dark that even lasers get lost in it.

The first edition was released as a sheet that could be used to cover some kinds of objects. However a new version exists in spray form and can cover almost anything.

Surrey NanoSystems designed the material and continues testing. Just because it exists don't think that means you'll be able to pick up a bucket of Vantablack paint any time soon. The technology is closely guarded and only distributed to a select few.

You might be wondering why we need a black that's blacker than black.

The material was designed for high-tech industries like space equipment. Vantablack apparently lets telescopes see lightyears farther than before, however more and more uses are being discovered.

Only one artist in the world, Anish Kapoor, is licensed to use Vantablack and the US is looking at Vantablack for it's possible applications in camouflage.