Astronomers uncover alien world so 'extraordinarily dark' it makes coal look shiny.

Astronomers have discovered the darkest known planet. The exoplanet, known as TrES-2b, reflects less than 1 per cent of light, which makes it darker than any other planet or moon.

'TrES-2b is considerably less reflective than black acrylic paint, so it's truly an alien world,' David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) told Science Daily. TrES-2b, a gas exoplanet roughly the size of Jupiter, is around 750 light years away and was discovered in 2006 by the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey; hence its less-than-catchy name.

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