A NEW material so light it can sit atop a fluffy dandelion has been invented. Styrofoam is 100 times heavier than the new material, which the research team, comprising scientists at UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and Caltech, say in the peer-reviewed November 18 issue of Science is the lightest material on earth.

The material, called ''ultralight metallic microlattice'', consists of 99.99 per cent air, thanks to its ''microlattice'' cellular architecture.

Modern marvel … the new material on a dandelion. Credit:Reuters

''The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1000 times thinner than a human hair,'' lead author Tobias Shandler of HRL said.

It is made out of 90 per cent nickel, but Bill Carter, manager of the Architected Materials Group at HRL, said it could be made out of other materials.