An image shared online for years authentically shows a scientist holding a basketball covered in “the world’s blackest substance.”
The image is an authentic photograph of a researcher from Surrey NanoSystems, a company that produces a product called Vantablack, which they have proclaimed is the world record holder for the “darkest man-made substance.” However …
… the object is not a basketball, but instead a metal disk that is 11.811 inches (300 mm) in diameter. Additionally, the material could not be definitively verified as “the world’s blackest substance.”
A photo of a man holding a spherical object that looks like a black hole circulated online in July 2024. Social media users claimed the item was a basketball covered in what they described as “the world’s blackest substance,” Vantablack.
The image had appeared online since at least 2016 and repeatedly cropped up on Reddit in 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2024. It was also included in Instagram and Facebook posts in July 2024.
Some people were fascinated by the mysterious picture, making comments like: “Looks like an ACME hole that the Wiley Coyote would fall into.” Another wrote: “Looks like my bank account.”
(uncanny_goat on Reddit)
Even the Chicago music festival Riot Fest featured a blog post about the apparent phenomenon in 2017, saying: “Science has finally created the blackest material known to man, other than my soul. It is so black that it becomes almost impossible to see surface features, and three-dimensional objects appear to become two-dimensional.”
Despite the photo’s peculiarity, it is authentic. It shows a researcher at Surrey NanoSystems holding an object covered in Vantablack, a “super-black coating” that absorbs so much light that all shape and texture of the object in question are rendered essentially imperceptible, much like the void of a black hole.
However, the company said in an email the item pictured is not a basketball but a metal disk 11.811 inches (300 mm) wide:
This is a genuine photograph but the object is a 300mm diameter metal disk, not a basketball. The man in the photo is a former employee of Surrey Nanosystems […] You can see other employees holding the same and similar objects in the images section of our website.
In addition, the material could not be definitively verified as “the world’s blackest substance.” For example, in 2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported the creation of a new super-black material that absorbed 10 times as much light as Vantablack. As such, we have rated this photograph miscaptioned.
According to Surrey NanoSystems, though, Vantablack does hold “the independently verified world record as the darkest man-made substance.”
The company’s Instagram page and official website featured a number of images similar to the photo in question. There were also videos from CNN, Sky News and motoring television show “Top Gear” explaining how the material works.
From the company’s own description of its product:
Vantablack is the brand name for a new class of super-black coatings. The coatings are unique in that they all have hemispherical reflectances below 1% and also retain that level of performance from all viewing angles.
The original coating known just as Vantablack® was a super-black coating that holds the independently verified world record as the darkest man-made substance. It was originally developed for satellite-borne blackbody calibration systems, but due to limitations in how it was manufactured its been surpassed by our spray applied Vantablack coatings.
Spray applied Vantablack coatings have unrivaled absorption from ultra-violet out beyond the terahertz spectral range. The totally unique properties of Vantablack coatings are being exploited for applications such as deep space imaging, automotive sensing, optical systems, art and aesthetics.
In 2016, Surrey NanoSystems’ chief technology officer, Ben Jensen, told Scientist Live magazine about the company’s Vantablack paint being used on a microsatellite developed by Berlin Space Technology (BST):
The Vantablack coating was originally developed to improve the efficiency of optical systems in space, and this BST satellite project gives us a very early opportunity to prove its performance … The material can be used to improve the performance of satellites, but also to dramatically reduce weight and size of optical systems — which could be crucial for future space missions.
The magazine further explained: “The material’s ability to absorb virtually all incident light improves the performance of the satellite’s star tracker-based positioning control system.”
Though originally created for scientific research purposes, Vantablack has been used for a variety of special projects, such as a video game marketing stunt, creating “the world’s blackest car,” and “the world’s blackest building” at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Despite these non-research applications, the Surrey NanoSystems website clearly stated Vantablack is not for commercial use. Their contact page read:
Please note that we will not respond to the following requests:
Coating your car, boat, motorbike or bicycle
Use of Vantablack S-VIS for art
Coating household objects, household rooms or personal musical instruments
Coating clothing or wearable fashion items like leather or fabric
Please also note that we don’t respond to private email addresses like gmail and yahoo unless you state the name of the business you represent as these coatings are not sold to the general public.
Snopes has investigated many instances of apparent science fiction that turned out to be based in fact, including a video showing nanobots helping sperm inseminate an egg, a picture of an electrician’s eyes after being electrocuted and a sea slug that can survive decapitation.
