New Ultra-Black Coating Enhances Search for Life on Exoplanets

A new ultra-black coating has been developed to assist in the imaging of exoplanets and the potential detection of life beyond the solar system. According to the NASA Science Editorial Team on May 12, 2026, the material is designed to be extremely thin and durable while efficiently absorbing light.

The coating is intended for use on starshades, which are specialized spacecraft designed to block the overwhelming brightness of distant stars to allow telescopes to see the planets orbiting them.

A starshade is a flower-shaped spacecraft, measuring roughly half the size of a football field. It is positioned between a space telescope and a target star to cast a shadow on the telescope, effectively masking the star’s glare.

The technical challenge of imaging exoplanets stems from the extreme difference in luminosity between a star and its planets. The light emitted by a star can be billions of times brighter than the light reflected from its surrounding planets. The NASA Science Editorial Team compared this difficulty to trying to find the light reflected from a gnat that is flying near a spotlight.

In addition to the brightness of the target star, space telescopes must contend with light pollution from our own Sun. Sunlight can scatter off the surfaces of spacecraft and reflect back into the telescope, which can obscure the dim light reflected from an exoplanet.

To enable a telescope to distinguish an exoplanet, a starshade must create an extremely pristine shadow. While the starshade’s primary job is to block starlight from the parent star, it must also suppress stray light from the Sun that scatters from the edges of the starshade’s petals into the telescope.

The new ultra-black coating addresses this by providing high light absorption and durability in a thin profile, reducing the amount of sunlight that scatters off the edges of the device.

When utilized effectively, a starshade can block unwanted light from a parent star to the extent that less than one part per billion of the starlight is observable. This level of suppression allows the much fainter light from an orbiting exoplanet to pass around the starshade and reach the telescope, enabling its detection.