The mucus blocks made scientists confused for hundreds of years

For hundreds of years, humans have recorded the strange mucus blocks on the ground they think falls from the sky. Ancient texts from the 14th century described them as transparent mucus or gray white, often evaporating shortly after “falling”. In the 13th century, British doctor John of Gaddesden also mentioned them in his medical articles, describing it as “a form of mucus lying on the ground” and suggested that it can be used to treat abscess.

The ancients contacted these mysterious mucus with meteor and comet, because they often appeared after the meteor shower. A 14th -century Latin medical term has a description of “a fat sprayed from the Earth often called ‘fallen star'”. Therefore, the ancients called these mysterious mucus blocks “star jelly”.

The exact origin of jelly is still controversial. Surely they do not fall from the stars. Instead, most of the tested samples have been biological origin.

The most common explanation is that jelly is not fertilized frog eggs, frog hunting like birds, or food that animals vomit. Among the star jelly collected from Dartmoor, England, in 1926, scientist Ha Baylis found the fallopian tubes, ovaries with black eggs and the rest of the digestive tract, the bladder of frogs or toads. This helps confirm the theory that some mucus is derived from amphibian animals.

Star jelly appears in the fall can be explained by frog activities. In this season, mature female frogs bring egg wrap to be ready to lay in the next spring. When passing through the fallopian tube, each egg was covered by a jelly layer from the wall of the tap. This jelly layer has a relatively small volume, but when exposed to water, they expand very large. If the predators catch frogs and meat, this jelly will fall out, absorb water from the soil and rain, becoming the large mucus blocks that people come across.

However, many jelly blocks are also likely to be mucus. Mucus is a strange creature that can live freely in the form of single cells, but can also be combined to form a multicellular structure, reproduce and move as a single body. Mucus lives on dead plants and eats microorganisms. They are present in the form of mucus and can be considered as star jelly.

Star jelly appears quite popular. In 2008, the BBC Radio Scotland urged the audience to send detailed information about the times when seeing jelly to this station’s website and commented on their origin. In just 4 months, more than 130 reports were published from all over the UK.

However, some jelly is very different. In 1979, a resident of Texas, USA, reported a few purple mucus on the front yard after the Perseid meteor shower. Investigators suspect they originated from a nearby battery recycling factory, although this still debated.

Another case, later became famous for a Hollywood movie, occurred in the city of Philadelphia, USA, in 1950, when the two police officers discovered a large mass of jelly about 1.8 m wide and the middle part was about 0.3 m thick on the street. They reported that the jelly block emitted matte purple light, but when they tried it, it melted into a layer of odorless foam.

More recently, in June 2019, a couple found 5 small blocks similar to shaved ice but mucous sticks in Goochland seeds, Virginia, USA. A agricultural expert in Chesterfield County tried to observe them under a microscope but did not find evidence of living things. Experts believe that this is a water -based artificial polymery, used in gardening to replace the soil.