Physicists have reached an unexpected breakthrough: they changed beams of light into a supersolid that flows without normal resistance. This marks a major milestone in condensed matter physics because it shows that light can adopt a structure resembling a solid while also moving around freely like a liquid.

“We actually made light into a solid. That’s pretty awesome,” said Dimitrios Trypogeorgos from Italy’s National Research Council (CNR). This is the first demonstration of this peculiar mix of solidity and fluidity using photons instead of atoms.