A coating that bounces back only around two per cent of incoming light could take much of the glare out of satellites. That is the finding of new research led by astrophysicists at the University of Surrey, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The material is Vantablack 310, an ultra-black coating from Surrey NanoSystems, a University of Surrey spinout whose staff are co-authors of the paper. The timing matters to the people who watch the sky for a living. As many as 60,000 satellites are projected to be in orbit by 2030, and sunlight reflecting off them leaves bright streaks and flares across telescope images. Surveys that hunt for faint objects such as asteroids and distant galaxies suffer most.
What the team did
The researchers measured how Vantablack 310 reflects light under a range of illumination and viewing conditions. They fed those laboratory numbers into simulations of how a coated satellite surface would look from the ground.
The simulated surfaces came out significantly fainter, close to the limit the International Astronomical Union recommends for protecting astronomical observations. The little light the coating does reflect is scattered more diffusely, which cuts the sharp flashes that shiny satellite surfaces produce.
James Whitfield, an applications scientist at Surrey NanoSystems and a co-author, said the coating “combines ultra-black performance across a wide range of viewing angles with the durability needed for low Earth orbit.” He added: “We are proud to work with the University of Surrey to help protect the night sky while supporting innovation in satellite technology.”
Astha Chaturvedi, the lead author and a postgraduate researcher at Surrey, put it more bluntly. “The night sky is one of humanity’s oldest windows into the Universe, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to see things,” she said. Her team’s results, she argued, show that “relatively simple material choices” could make a meaningful difference without major changes to mission design.
Co-author Dr Noelia Noël, a senior lecturer in astrophysics at Surrey, said the work goes beyond naming the problem and points toward practical, evidence-based fixes.
Next stop, orbit
Lab data and simulations only go so far. The team is preparing an in-orbit demonstration on the Jovian-1 CubeSat mission, a student-led programme involving the universities of Surrey, Portsmouth and Southampton. It will test how the coating performs in the space environment, and whether the change in brightness can be measured from the ground.
Universe Today pointed to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time as one project at risk. It aims to catalogue Solar System objects, including near-Earth asteroids, and to study things that move or change in brightness, which is hard to do through a sky full of streaks.
Noël leads the wider Light Pollution and Sustainable Space initiative, which won Best Sustainable Project at the university’s 2026 Sustainability Awards. Chaturvedi has been invited to present the research at the United Nations Workshop on Dark and Quiet Skies in Vienna.
Sources
- Astrophysicists show how the world’s darkest coating could protect the night sky from satellite light pollution
- Ultra-Black Coating Could Mitigate Light Pollution Caused by Satellites
