Look at this painting. What do you think that seems to float in the hands of a scientist? It almost looks like diffused projected light, but it's actually a futuristic material that could revolutionize a wide variety of objects and manufacturing processes in the coming decades. It's called aerogel, and it's pretty amazing stuff.

Currently, aerogel is the lightest solid material known as a solid, it can support thousands of times its own weight, blocking heat, cold, and sound - yet it is 1,000 times less dense than glass, almost as transparent, and made up of 99.8 percent air. The lowest density silicon-based aerogels are even lighter than air.

Although aerogel is still a bit fragile at this point in its development, it has amazing thermal, acoustic and electrically insulating properties, as the picture here shows. A one-pound block can support half a ton. Aerogels are actually a group of materials with similar properties and can be made from silicon, carbon or metal oxides.

An aerogel window only 1cm thick has the effective insulating capacity of a 10cm thick glazing system. While the material remains expensive and has other limitations, the material - originally developed nearly a century ago, but still undergoing trials - could prove to be one of the most influential of the 21st century. Its nicknames include frozen smoke, blue smoke and solid air, thanks to the scattering of light in it.

Among other things, aerogels also have amazing absorption capabilities. Some have speculated that this could be a future solution to the oil spill. It is also being tested as a possible slow-release drug system for potential human patients.