Celestialite

Trees are green because plants absorb light, but green is the least potent form of light which it reflects back, so we see them as being green. Colour is entirely our perception, we see in 3 colours - that can combine to form multiple different colours. Blue, green and red form all the colours we can see.

Butterflies have five types of colour receptives, and so they can see more than us, e.g they can see colours we don't have names for and can't see at all.

The mantis shrimp has 16 colour receptives.

This inspired something, somehow, about how humans could change in the future. Not necessarily that we would see more colours, although perhaps that could be a possibility. The idea of a substance or resource that naturally generated light energy could be used to fuel things in the same way solar power can do today.

The idea is that at first, humans would not notice this power because the light this substance radiated wasn't particularly bright. However, they learned that it radiated different kinds of light which humans couldn't see or were not aware of - much like infa red or ultraviolet. The humans built special containers to absorb the energy radiating from this material and use it to power their civilization in place of oil, fossil fuels or electricity.

This is how I came up with the function of celestialiate - the futuristic material in question that lands on earth in the story and ultimately shapes the future of humanity, including the development of technology, expansion into space, and how it is sought after by both the humans and other life forms, but not entirely for the same purpose.